Revival: Women, Work and Family in the Soviet Union (1982)

Gail Lapidus

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780873322553
• eBook ISBN: 9781351715911
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This work reports on the Vietnam war as seen by the GI in the jungles. It discusses current attitudes, views from Saigon, Hanoi and Phnom Penh, and other locales in the countryside.

Part One
Levels and Patterns of Female Employment

1
Current Problems of Female Labor in the USSR

L. Rzhanitsyna

International Women's Day, March 8, was celebrated in 1979 for the sixty-ninth time. The decision to celebrate it was made in 1910 by the International Congress of Women Socialists in Copenhagen, Denmark, in order to unite women of all countries and peoples in the struggle for their rights. International Women's Day was first celebrated in Russia in 1913, when a "Scholarly Morning on the Women's Question" was held in St. Petersburg, under police surveillance. When it was over, several of the women speakers were arrested for attempting to discuss the hard lot of the working woman and the absence of elementary rights and political freedoms for her in Russia. Thus began the conscious association with revolution of representatives of the women's movement, whose significance was given high marks by V. I. Lenin.

March 8 is now a national holiday in our country. It is an expression of the active participation of women in the struggle for socialism, for its consolidation and development. At the same time, it remains a day of international solidarity for women of all countries to unite to secure general equality, defend the interests of children, and assure peace on earth.

Socialism has shown the whole world how the "woman's question" should be solved. It provided the basic conditions for equality: elimination of all forms of exploitation and oppression and the involvement of women in social production and sociopolitical life. Simultaneously, a special system of socioeconomic guarantees has been set up for women as workers and as mothers. These vitally important rights are confirmed in the Constitution of the USSR. Article 35 states, "Women and men in the USSR have equal rights.

"The exercise of these rights is ensured by providing women with opportunities equal to those of men in receiving an education and vocational training, in labor, remuneration, and promotion, and in social, political, and cultural activity, as well as by special measures to protect women's labor and health; by the creation of conditions enabling women to combine labor and motherhood; by legal protection and material and moral support for mother and child, including the granting of paid leave and other benefits to pregnant women and mothers; and by the gradual reduction of working time for women with small children."

L.I. Brezhnev spoke vividly of the constant and special concern for women in socialist society at the Twenty-fifth CPSU Congress: "The Party considers its duty to be to show constant concern for woman and to improve her position as a participant in the labor process, as a mother, counsellor of children, and housewife."

All these basic directions in improving living conditions for working women in our country are supported by an appropriate system of measures.

* * *

The firm foundation of equality and the achievements of our country in changing the social position of women provide a basis for the new measures currently being taken to create ever more favorable conditions for women's work, daily life, rest, and recreation. The laws of developed socialism and the dynamic and proportional development of social production create ever greater opportunities for satisfying the needs and promoting the comprehensive development of the personality of all Soviet people, including women. In view of the role of women in bearing and bringing up children, one could say that concern for them is at the same time concern for future generations of builders of communism. These considerations are fully taken into account in the program of socioeconomic measures approved at the Twenty-fifth CPSU Congress and in subsequent party and government decisions currently being implemented in the USSR.

The economic base for carrying out this program is provided by our country's increased production potential. Its implementation is linked with the needs of further social development and the continued growth of the people's well-being. From 1966 to 1978 the country's capital funds almost trebled, and the national income more than doubled. Industrial output increased 2.5 times, and agricultural output rose by 40%. All this made for an 84% increase in per capita real income and a rise in average wages per worker and employee to 160 rubles, as against 97 rubles in 1965. Income from public consumption funds per inhabitant increased correspondingly from 182 to 400 rubles per year. Purchases of goods increased 2.3 times, and the volume of public services expanded approximately fivefold. Over these years the rate of development of culture and education accelerated. The number of students increased by more than one third, and today eight out of every ten persons working in the national economy have a higher or secondary (complete or incomplete) education.

At present the program for improving the position of working women in the USSR has several specific features.

First of all, it is being carried out under conditions of greater labor participation by women. Thus the proportion of women workers and employees is 51% of all workers at state-owned enterprises. The proportion of women among those working on collective farms is 48%. Today more than 62 million women are employed in the national economy. More than 40 million of them participate in the socialist emulation movement, including 25 million who take part in the communist work movement. Lately women's councils have become more active, special committees for work among women have been set up in the country's legislative bodies, and women are playing a greater part in government management and administration and in the party and trade unions (see Table 1).

It is important to emphasize that the growth shown in the public activity of women was accompanied by positive processes in the family and domestic sphere of life. They included a general rise in the people's well-being, improvement in the sex ratio (whereas in 1959 there were 45% men and 55% women, in 1978 there were 47% men and 53% women, while in the age groups up to 30, since the late '60s the number of men has been greater than the number of women), reduction in the marriage age, and a stabilization and some increase in the birthrate (17.3 births per 1,000 inhabitants in 1967, 18.1 in 1977).

Another important feature of the measures for the general improvement of women's living conditions is that over the last few years, these measures have been increasingly incorporated in plans of economic and social development both on a national economic scale and at the level of industries and enterprises. The idea of drawing up an integrated plan of social development of a large production collective and the first experience in carrying it out appeared a little over ten years ago in the Leningrad production association "Svetlana." Today it is common practice for thousands and thousands of enterprises. With the endorsement of the USSR State Planning Committee's single method for drawing up integrated plans of economic and social development of enterprises, it is possible, in our view, to speak of the creation of a comprehensive system of social planning in the USSR. The enterprise plans make it possible to supplement extensive government measures with daily detailed work in every labor collective. This makes it urgent to expand the volume and improve the quality of scientific information, and to supplement general and averaged indicators in the area of working conditions, rest, everyday life and recreation of women

Table 1*

with data gleaned from mass statistical and sociological studies, which makes it possible to take fuller account of women's characteristics and to comprehensively evaluate the consequences of measures taken to improve working and living conditions, with mothers principally in mind.

Participation of Women in Social Labor

Economists estimate that more than 90% of all women of working age are now either working or studying (in 1959 this index was lower: 73%). If we consider that women account for the majority of people of retirement age who continue to work, it seems natural to assume that in many parts of the country the possibility of drawing women from the household and private subsidiary holdings into social production is virtually exhausted, and a high level of employment has been achieved.

We know that high levels of female employment in developed machine production are an objective law. Noting this, Klara Zetkin wrote at the turn of the century that to oppose the employment of female labor in industry and seek to get women back into the home is as senseless and self-defeating as the efforts of the English workers who thought that by destroying factories they could eliminate the competition created by machines. Those who would eliminate or restrict female labor (except when it is absolutely harmful to the health of a woman or her progeny) have no understanding of the essence of the economic and social processes of our time.

Under the conditions of socialism, which have fostered a new attitude toward work, and even more so in the period of the transition to communism, when the creative character of labor is increasing, women see work not only as a basis for economic independence but also as a source of self-affirmation and personal development, as well as a prime civic duty. This confronts socialist society with new and ever more complex tasks of improving their working conditions in the broadest sense of the word. It involves, as is noted in the Constitution, providing work according to ability, making it more meaningful, creating conditions for improving skills and qualifications, eliminating harmful effects of the production environment on the organism, making work itself easier, introducing rational work schedules, and reducing working hours, mainly for mothers of small children.

People s expectations of working conditions rise together with their well-being and culture. Lenin wrote that "The di...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction Women, Work, and Family: New Soviet Perspectives
• Part One Levels and Patterns of Female Employment
• Part Two The Impact of Female Employment on the Family
• Part Three A Policy Agenda for the 1980s
• Appendixes
• About the Editor