On Communist Work Among Women in Soviet Central Asia

From the Archives of Marxism

March 8 marks International Women’s Day. In honor of that proletarian holiday, we print below excerpts from a report by Varsenika Kasparova titled “Forms and Methods of Work Among the Women of the Soviet East.” The report was published in a 1924 Communist Party of Great Britain pamphlet called Work Among Women.

By sweeping away the capitalist order throughout the tsarist empire, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution drastically changed the lives of women. In overwhelmingly Muslim Soviet Central Asia, the Bolsheviks faced the enormous task of overthrowing pre-feudal and tribal social and economic relations that were inextricably linked to the virtual enslavement of women. Bringing the peoples from these backward regions over to the side of revolution could only happen to the extent that they understood that the transformation of society—to which they themselves would contribute—was in their own interest.

The Zhenotdel (the Bolshevik Party’s Department of Working Women and Peasant Women) sent Bolshevik cadre across the Steppe to bring the vision of socialist emancipation to Muslim women and draw them actively into the work. Zhenotdel organizers and educators at times even donned the paranja (head-to-toe veil) in order to meet with these women. They faced threats from every sort of counterrevolutionary tendency, and both they and the brave women they worked with faced violence and death. By 1924, Zhenotdel organizations existed in many areas.

The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution began to lay the material foundations for the liberation of women. But without the international extension of the revolution, especially to the advanced capitalist countries, the material basis for the elimination of scarcity and its attendant oppressions could not be realized. The pressure of imperialist encirclement, the devastation of the working class during the Civil War and the lengthy isolation of the Russian Revolution enabled a bureaucratic layer headed by Stalin to usurp political power in a political counterrevolution in 1923-24. Beginning then, the people who ruled the USSR, the way the USSR was ruled and the purposes for which the USSR was ruled all changed. In 1930, the Soviet government liquidated the Zhenotdel. After decades of Stalinist misrule, capitalist counterrevolution triumphed in 1991-92, a world-historic defeat for the international working class and for the women of the former Soviet Union.

Varsenika Kasparova was co-director of the Zhenotdel with longtime Bolshevik cadre Alexandra Kollontai. She also headed the Agitational Department of the All-Russian Bureau of Military Commissars, whose teams she deployed throughout Trotsky’s Red Army. Of Tatar origin, Kasparova was responsible for the countries of the East in the Communist International’s International Women’s Secretariat (IWS). She was prominent in Trotsky’s Left Opposition, which fought the Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet Union, including while she held her post in the IWS. In 1941, she was executed in a Stalinist prison.

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THE Soviet Government, having announced the most complete and thorough-going programme the world has ever known for the abolition of all forms of oppression of man by man, was not content with mere formal proclamations, but took immediate measures for their execution. Thus, in dealing with the question of nationalities, the Soviet Government not only proclaimed the equality of all nationalities living within the Soviet borders, but took practical steps to make them equal in fact. Since equality is only possible among nations which have attained the same level of economic, cultural and political development, the first step along this line was, of necessity, immediate assistance to the most backward nations in order to raise them to the level of development that had been attained by the more progressive peoples. Under the special conditions of the Soviet Union, particular attention had to be paid to the people living in the Eastern border countries where the colonial policy of the Tsar, resulting in the artificial retention of whole nations in a primitive state, had brought about the most disastrous results. The main forces had, therefore, to be diverted to the Eastern borders—the weakest section of the national front. The Soviet Government was faced with a great historical task in the East. First there was the problem of developing and quickening the economic life, of replacing the prevailing primitive forms of agriculture and cattle-breeding with more modern methods, and of building up local industrial centres capable of quickly shaking off the survivals of feudalism. Then came the problem of raising the cultural level of the working masses, of waging an energetic campaign against such relics of barbarism as polygamy, religious prejudices, ancient customs, and the purchasing of wives. Parallel with this, it was necessary to familiarise the population with the elements of culture, to abolish illiteracy, to reform their social life and finally to undertake the task of the Communist education of the workers.

But the execution of all these measures, leading to the complete liberation of the backward peoples of the East, is inextricably bound up with the question of the liberation of the Oriental women who are still incomparably more enslaved and oppressed than men. The debased position of the women of the East, which is an outrage to human dignity, is directly due to the fact that the Eastern women take no part in productive labour and are confined entirely to the subsidiary labour of the home and the care of the family. Economically helpless, the Eastern woman is completely at the mercy of her husband or her father, who are the absolute masters of her fate. Her world is limited to the bedroom, the kitchen, and the children, and thus the woman becomes sluggish and passive, a drag on every forward movement.

The backwardness of the women of the Eastern countries is the main obstacle in the road not only of the reorganisation of family and social relationships, but of the economic structure. And without that fundamental change there can be no thought of the awakening of the East. In view of these conditions, the first task is to release the suffering women of the East from the grip of ancient social forms and religious prejudices in which she is held, and help her to stand on her feet and enjoy those rights guaranteed to her by Soviet law. No matter how difficult this task appears, we cannot wave it aside or put it off until tomorrow, for without the liberation of the women, the abolition of national oppression is impossible. Moreover, the emancipation of Eastern women will mean an increase in the productivity of labour in Russia as well as the broadening and reinforcing of the social basis on which the Communist Party depends in its constructive work. Although incapable of grasping the meaning and substance of Bolshevism mentally, the toiling women of the East, awakening to the new life, cannot but instinctively sympathise with the Communists for the very reason that they belong to the most oppressed class of society and they are drawn involuntarily into the struggle for liberation, carrying with them all the passion of one who but yesterday was a slave. For all these reasons the work among the Eastern women occupies a unique position, and the question of the apparatus directing the work, the conditions under which it is carried on, and the forms and methods employed, require particular attention. The Working Women’s Department serves as the apparatus for organising the toiling women of the East on the basis of their economic interests, aiding in their cultural development and attracting them into Soviet and party life....

With all the heroic efforts of the Women’s Department, it is impossible as yet to train a sufficient number of workers from among the masses of working women to carry on all the work that is necessary among the hundreds of thousands of unenlightened women of the East. Only if the work among the Eastern women is recognised as the problem of the party as a whole, and if the working women’s department is able, through the Press and special reports at non-party peasant conferences, to develop sufficiently widespread agitation among the male population of the East, shall we have the required conditions for developing the work, or, more exactly, an apparatus capable of directing the work.

But the mere presence of a working apparatus does not necessarily ensure the success of its activities. This depends on whether the task is approached correctly, and whether the forms and methods chosen are practicable.

A certain amount of experience has already been accumulated, in relation to both these particular questions, enabling us to select those ways and means which have already been proved applicable to the unique conditions we have in the East. The first thing to bear in mind is that the work of the Women’s Department must not be confined to working women employed in the factories, but should be carried on among women engaged in home industries, women peasants and housekeepers. And in every case special attention should be paid to young girls, for they are especially good material both for educational propaganda work and as prospective members of various kinds of organisations....

In organising work in the Eastern borderlands we must not for one moment forget that every one of these national republics and regions represents a separate world, with its own customs and habits determined by its isolated economic life. In adapting themselves to these special conditions, the Women’s Department workers must avoid equally any survival of the imperialistic attitude toward the border regions, with its contempt for special national needs and mistrust of the native workers, and any tendencies in the direction of local Chauvinism, finding expression in an exaggeration of local needs to the detriment of the interest of the Union of Soviet Republics as a whole....

First of all, we shall consider those methods directed toward the economic liberation of women. In this sphere measures must be used for raising the qualifications of women’s labour, for combating unemployment and for the organisation of industrial artels [cooperative associations]. With the aim of acquainting the working women of the East with industrial methods, special trade and factory schools have been organised. In certain cases these schools are conducted with women’s clubs and schools....

But the measures described represent only one side of the activities of the Women’s Department. Side by side with its efforts to raise the cultural level of the women of the East, the Women’s Department is carrying on the extensive work of implanting the elements of culture in the minds of the Eastern Women, and attracting them into community work. The methods used in this work are many and various. First of all, as a means of combating the high mortality and social diseases so prevalent in the national republics, and the various ancient customs physically disabling women and children, the Women’s Department has organised a chain of medical stations, maternity homes, children’s consultations, creches, etc., and is carrying on a wide propaganda of sanitation and hygienic information. Special attention is also directed to such survivals of barbarism as the marriage of minors, the wearing of veils, the binding of women in childbirth, etc. In addition to these forms of direct help to the backward population of the Eastern borderlands, instituted by the organs of the Commissariat of Health, the Department for the Protection of Mothers and Infants, and the Commissariat of Social Insurance, the Women’s Department has devoted no less attention to the combating of national ignorance. Along with the various medical and children’s institutions, the Women’s Department has tried to develop a chain of educational institutions. Special efforts have been made in the direction of liquidating illiteracy and in increasing the attendance of girls at the Soviet schools....

As experience has proved in Azerbaidjan, the women’s clubs attain great popularity and hold great promise for development among the Eastern women. One inestimable advantage of the clubs is that they attract even the most backward and apathetic women, who are unconsciously drawn into community work, and thus the influence of the club is extended far beyond its circle of membership....

No small part in supporting the work of the educational institutions is played by the Press. Nine newspapers are published in the Soviet East which contain special pages devoted to the needs of the working women of the East. In Turkestan a special paper for women is published, and in Azerbaidjan and Georgia there are two women’s journals, Jenshina Na Vostok (The Woman of the East) and Nash Put (Our Path). All of these organs are printed in the native language so that the local women may understand them.

Another form of cultural activity which should be noted is the question of women’s rights. The first task of the Women’s Department in this field is to inform the native population of the decrees of the Soviet Government establishing complete equality of the sexes, the protection of mothers and infants, and the protection of women in industry. The second task is to stimulate the women to make use of the rights which have been secured to them and to draw them into work in the capacity of assessors, advocates, judges, etc., with the aim of doing away with all the barbaric survivals in the realm of women’s rights and position. The best means of attaining this, in addition to widespread propaganda through the Press and platform, is through the organisation of a series of legal bureaux connected with the clubs or the Women’s Department, to which women may turn for advice and protection in cases of infringement of their rights by their husbands or fathers; the arrangement of special public trials from time to time and the staging of mock trials for the consideration of matters connected with the local convention of marriage and family relations.... This work must, however, be preceded by a certain amount of political education. The institution of delegates is the instrument for carrying on political education among the wide non-party masses of women. The women delegate meetings should bring together the working women, the peasant women and the housekeepers, and at the present time when the solution of the national question requires the forming of ties with the peasants of the national minorities, the work among the peasant women of the countries of the East must be given first consideration....

The chief task of the delegate meetings both in the separate political campaigns and in the general non-party conferences is to draw the women into the government, trade union, co-operative and party structure. The Women’s Department endeavours to have women included on the election tickets to all Soviet organs, and particularly to the village Soviets, the volost Congresses, the Volost Central Executive Committees, and the town Soviets. With the aim of increasing the activities of the members elected to the Soviets the Women’s Department should bring up at their meetings questions having to do with the family, and the social and economic position of the Oriental women. Those delegates who are not members of the Soviet must be urged to participate in the discussions on these questions.

In addition to drawing the women of the East into government organs, it is also necessary to increase the activities of women in trade unions, and to attract the peasant and proletarian women into consumers’ co-operatives.

It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of the phase of the work of the Women’s Department that has just been indicated. The participation of Oriental women in active, constructive work will advance the Communist movement just as far as their backwardness and apathy have held it back. Furthermore, the practical work in Soviet institutions and social organisations means the gradual separation of the most conscious and dependable women from among the backward women of the East, and these women swell the ranks of the Communist Party and increase the number of active builders of the new life. And among the remaining masses, the work in the capacity of delegates or practical workers serves to awaken them to the decrepit condition of the Oriental social forms and customs, which is the first step to their complete support of the activities of the Soviet government. Not until all the hundreds of thousands of women in the East have been thus awakened, can our work among them be considered successful. Under present conditions the work among the Eastern women occupies a very prominent place. The attention of all the enemies and friends of Soviet Russia in other countries is rivetted on this work. The former observe the awakening of the East with alarm, but the latter are carefully noting the ways and means applied by the Communist Party in order to make use of the experience of the Russian Communist Party in their own countries, after the imperialistic and colonial system has been brought to an end.