RUSSIAN AND SOVIET WOMEN, 1897-1939: DREAMS, STRUGGLES, AND NIGHTMARES. (VOLUMES I AND II) (WORK, POLITICS, FEMINISM)

This study discusses the dreams, struggles, and nightmares of women in pre-revolutionary Russia and in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s. It focuses on women's increasing political consciousness and activity, the spread of education, and women's changing economic situation. Class analysis is a central theme in this study since the lives of peasant women were considerably different than those of industrial women workers, domestic servants, service employees, or career women.;This study uses materials from party censuses and stenographic records of party congresses to interpret women's public political activity. It uses accounts from newspapers, journals, novels, plays, and memoirs to illustrate women's personal political struggles and achievements. The combined use of these sources reveals ways in which women's public political participation affected women's private lives, and ways in which women's personal struggles for emancipation in the family often had public political repercussions.;This study shows that women's educational, economic, and political positions exhibited considerable variation according to class and time period. It reveals that women of most strata achieved considerable improvement in their educational, economic, and political situations, although they did not attain the public equality that the 1936 Soviet Constitution proclaimed. Moreover, equality in family life remained difficult, elusive, and problematic for most women in the Russian Imperial and Soviet periods.;This study uses census data from the 1897 Imperial Russian Census and the 1926 and 1939 Soviet Censuses to show changing employment patterns. It also draws upon comparable English, French, and German census materials to highlight general economic patterns that existed in Russia and Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Census data provides quantitative evidence to support impressions about women's lives gained from memoirs, novels, and newspapers.