User:King Canine/sandbox

Formatting to be done later.

Maybe rename title to "Women in the Russian Revolutions of 1917" for specificity.

Women and the First World War:

As a reaction to economic and developmental issues left long unaddressed, the February Revolution marks a time of widespread disillusionment with the status quo of Imperial Russia, as well as several conflicting social and political fronts that sought to address them. Despite being directly participating in the political aspect of the changes the Russian Revolution were bringing, women were nevertheless at the heart of the social changes brought by the Revolution. The role of women as principle agitators of the February Revolution had not only expedited the end of the monarchy and the formation of the Dual Power structure, but their actions had also encouraged the Bolsheviks to adopt more opportunistic policies in terms of wresting power away from the Provisional Government, eventually accumulating to the October Revolution.

Conflicting answers to the Woman Question:

By the advent of the Russian Revolution, several conflicting fronts had emerged to address the Woman Question in Russia. As the Russian Revolution turned increasingly hostile to the Tsar and the nobility, women's liberation was progressively pioneered less and less by the gentry women that composed most of the bourgeoisie feminist front and more by radical socialist revolutionaries. By the establishment of the Provisional Government following the February Revolution, the liberal feminists and their agenda of female emancipation had become estranged with the radical Bolsheviks, who viewed reformist and moderate policy as bourgeoisie obstruction to complete liberation from capitalist oppression.

Conflict arose between women who sought to preserve the integrity of Imperial Russia and those who sought to expedite its end. While the efforts of Maria Bochkareva in organizing the Women's Death Battalion was laureated by feminists such as Anna Shabanova and Emmeline Pankhurst, they were sharply vilified by leftist radicals who viewed them and their efforts as tools for capitalists. Russia's failure to turn the dire situation on the warfront around led to great disillusionment with the efforts of moderates and Imperial patriots to resolve the political and socioeconomic problems being exacerbated by the war, and further made the Bolshevik's stance of separate peace became all more palatable to the increasingly desperate women and workers at home.

The February Revolution:

The frustration that drove the February Revolution was derived principally from women, protesting against the lack of development economically and politically that has gone unaddressed for decades by 1917, whose implications were exacerbated by the ongoing First World War. Women found themselves at the behest of the revolutionary spirit of the February Revolution, being the first to take the initiative to halt work and go to the streets to protest over their male counterparts, as well as encouraging soldiers to join the crowds in their protests. (stites 290) (ruthchild 220)

The October Revolution and the Zhenotdel:

Following the October Revolution and the definitive end of bourgeoisie policies in the newly forming USSR, women Bolsheviks such as Alexandra Kollontai and Inessa Armand saw great success implementing social reform policies that by the 1920s would put the USSR at the frontier of social progress, particularly for women.

Under the leadership of Kollontai and Armand, the Zhenotdel formed as a women's wing to the Bolsheviks in 1919. The Zhenotdel would play an instrumental role in the Russian Civil War as well as the political and social progression of women in the early Soviet Union until their disbandment in 1930.

References:

Ruthchild, Rochelle Goldberg. Equality and Revolution: Women's Rights in the Russian Empire, 1905-1917. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.

Stites, Richard. The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism: 1860-1930. Princeton University Press, 1991.