USSR Women

Women as a force of labour - women in the workforce rose from 423,000 to 885,000

Kollontai became the first female member of government in Europe - head of the Zhenotdel - female department of government - part of the central committe - short lived - sent out as a norwegian ambassador in 1923

Family code in 1918- seperated marraige and church, allowed a couple to choose a surname, gave illegitmate children the same rights, maternal entitlements, health and safery protections, crech provided by most workplaces and provided women with the right to divoce - de facto marraiges causes trouble - no legal protection for wives - men had no legal ties - women unable to secure assistance - increase in number of homeless children

1920 - legalised abortion- 1922 - maritial r*pe made illegal - labour laws assisted women - given equal rights in terms of insurance, eight week paid maternity leave- family plan 1925 - number of divocrses increases - comman marriage law for couples living togehter

Nadezkhda Krupskaya - Lenin's wife - forefront of the revolution - education commissar - strong influence - secretrary of the centrla comitte in 1905 - intergral to the revolution

Industrialisation - need for a workforce - women create children - want a rise in population - women working in industry - women in propaganda as mothers - needed man power - men died in the war - women became snipers  - 95,000 girls joined the red army or the soviet navy

women fell victim to the purges - number of women in gulags grew from 30,000 in 1934 to 109,000 in 1940 - women were not sent to hard labout camps - textile

women took charge of state farms and collective farms - in 1942 women made up over half of all agricultural labour

return to traditional conservative values - abortion became illegal (keep population up), homosecuality illegal, legal differences between legitmate and illegitmate children, divorce became difficult to obtain - divorce went from 4 ruples to 10 ruples- push of nuclear family

Nadezhka Alliuyeva - Stalin's wife - was lenin and stalin's secretariat - expelled fromt he party by Stalin - later became his secretary - killed herself after reading a pamplet about stalin's atrosities

Khrushchev - repealed ban on abotion in 1955- Ekaterina Furteva became the first woman to become a member of the poliburo in 1955 - her position being Khrushev's favourite - Valenina Tereshkoba - first woman to fly in space - selected from more than 4,000 applications - pilot Vostok 6 mission on 16 June 1963- only honarily inducted into the soveit air force - various tests on herself to collect dats on the female body's reaction to space flight - exceptions to the rule

Brezhnev - 1977 consitution support women's rights in public life (article 35) and in family life (article 53)

Consitution contained contradictions - emphaiss on motherhood - essential calling of women being motherhood - female influlence in the politburo was nothing until the 80s under Gorbachev

Latya Mayorova - miss KGB - won a beuty pagent - face of the KGB - women seen as powerful

Mariya Oktyabrskaya - soviet tank driver and mechanic who fought on the eastern front against the nazis- nicknamed fighting girlfriend - prompoted to sergent - made a hero of the soviet union - highest honour

Zinaida Portnova - teenager - spy - part of the all union lennist young communist league or Komsomol - believed to be responsible for killing hundreds of nazi soldiers- infiltrated nazi camp - laced food with posion - tried the food that was posion then threw it up

Rosalia Zemylachka - known as demon and osipov - supporter of the revolution - set up moscow uprising - first woman to be decorated with the order of the red banner

Natalya Meklin - flight commander - night witches - awared hero of the soviet union

Lyudmila Pavlichenko - soviet sniper - credited with at least 309 kills - most successful sniper in recorded history - lady death - Nina Petrova - soviet sniper - 122 kills in WW2 - order of glory award