Women and Everyday Life in Bolshevik Projects and Soviet Reality of the 1920s (Based on the Materials from Stavropol region)

Introduction. The article examines Bolshevik ideas about women’s social place in the new society, their everyday reality in the 1920s, and the policies of the government to implement their projects, using Stavropol as an example. Since gender history and the history of everyday life converge in this case, approaches from these fields were used to demonstrate the forms of women’s involvement in public work as a means of shaping a new everyday life. The article is based on the historiographical experience of foreign and domestic studies in its relevant fields – the history of everyday life and gender history, as well as intellectual history in the context of changes in public and mass consciousness.

Materials and Methods. The study is based on the first legislative documents of the Soviet power, the articles of post-revolutionary figures, and archival records of district, provincial, and city party committees in Stavropol, as well as records of executive committees at various levels from the State Archive of Contemporary History of Stavropol Krai and the State Archive of Stavropol Krai. Along with objectivity and historicity principles, methodological tools from such fields of historical research as everyday history, gender history, modern local history, and cultural and intellectual history were employed.

Analysis. With the reference to historical sources, the article examines such issues as the policy of the first years of the Soviet power regarding the status of women. Social thought of this period and the ideas of the government were based on the overall goal of creating a “new person”, and the education of a “new woman” as part of this project. This particular aspect of the task was to involve women’s hands in social production and women’s minds in the overall process of ideologizing society in the spirit of faith in communism and its construction. The practical implementation of these goals led to a revolution not only in the mass consciousness but also in women’s everyday lives. Social forms of communication, the practice of creating conditions for mothers and children, the fight for literacy, and women’s own rethinking of their role in society and the home all entered their private lives. The article explores the implementation of Soviet policy to change the place of women in socialist construction in the Stavropol province and district, and the difficulties of a region that had survived the Civil War and famine, located on the outskirts of the former Russian Empire, and was experiencing economic and financial devastation. Nevertheless, as sources indicate, even under these conditions, attempts were made to organize women to participate in public life in various forms, to help pregnant and nursing mothers with food and essential items, and to create conditions for education outside the family.

Results. Based on the above mentioned, it can be concluded that despite the difficulties, despite the traditionalism of the conservative part of society, which was unwilling to change the status of women as domestic slaves and child-producing machines, despite the religiosity and illiteracy of women in this agricultural region, new ideas and new social practices changed women’s daily lives in this region.

1. Anderson Marnie S. Forgotten History of Japanese Women and the Formation of Women's and Gender History in Academic Circles. Istoriya zhenshhin.. 2020;32.1:62–84. (In Russ.).

2. Braudel F. Structures of Everyday Life: The Possible and the Impossible / translated by L. E. Kubbel. Moscow: Progress, 1986. 623 p. (In Russ.).

3. Bykova SI. Between the past and the future: everyday life of the 1930s as interpreted by contemporaries in Images of power in the political culture of Russia / edited by E. B. Shestopal. Moscow: MONF, 2000. 108 p. (In Russ.).

4. Waldenfels B. Everyday life as a melting pot of rationality. SOCIO-LOGOS. Moscow: Progress, 1991. 480 p. (In Russ.).

5. All-Union Population Census of December 17, 1926: Brief Summaries. Part VII: Age and Literacy of the Population of the USSR. Moscow: Publication of the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR, 1928. 111 p. (In Russ.).

6. State Archives of Contemporary History of Stavropol Krai (GANISK) F.3. Inv.1. D. 2687. (In Russ.).

7. State Archives of Stavropol Krai (GASK). F.R1686. Inv.1. D.1. (In Russ.).

8. GASK. F.R. 1686. Inv.1. D.48. (In Russ.).

9. GASK. F.R. 243. Inv.1. D.1. (In Russ.).

10. GASK. F.R. 1686. Inv.1. D.1. (In Russ.).

11. GASK. F.R. 243. Inv.1. D.5. (In Russ.).

12. Decree of the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies. On Land. URL: https://istmat.org/node/27653?ysclid=mikquvjc6f412424035 (accessed: 21.09.2025). (In Russ.).

13. Zhuravlev SV. “Little People” and “Big History”: Foreigners of the Moscow Elektrozavod in Soviet Society in the 1920s and 1930s. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2000. 351 p. (In Russ.).

14. Zubkova EYu. Post-war Soviet Society: Politics and Everyday Life. 1945-1953. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1999. 229 p. (In Russ.).

15. Kozlova NN. Horizons of Everyday Life in the Soviet Era: Voices from the Choir. Moscow: Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1996. 216 p. (In Russ.).

16. Kropachev S. A. Evolution of the institutions of family, marriage and the social role of women in Soviet Russia in the 1920s. Vestnik rossijskoj akademii estestvenny`x nauk. 2022;4:134–139. (In Russ.).

17. Kukushkin YuS. An essay on the history of the Soviet Constitution. Moscow: Politizdat, 1987. 364 p. (In Russ.).

18. Lebina NB. Everyday life of the Soviet city: Norms and anomalies. St. Petersburg: Zhurn. Neva, Letniy Sad, 1999. 316 p. (In Russ.).

19. Lenin VI. On the Tasks of the Women’s Labor Movement in the Soviet Republic: Speech at the IV Moscow Citywide Non-Party Conference of Women Workers in Lenin VI. Complete Works. 5th edition. Vol. 39. Moscow: Political Literature Publishing House, 1970. p. 198–205. (In Russ.).

20. Lenin VI. Soviet Power and the Position of Women in Lenin VI. Complete Works. 5th edition. Vol. 39. Moscow: Political Literature Publishing House, 1970. p. 286. (In Russ.).

21. Lütke A. What is the History of Everyday Life? Its Achievements and Prospects in Germany in Social History: Yearbook. 1998/99. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1999. p. 77–100. (In Russ.).

22. Pinchukova I. V. Gender Approach in Historical Science https://cyberleninka.ru/journal/n/izvestiya-altayskogogosudarstvennogo-universiteta (accessed: 21.09.2025) (In Russ.).

23. Resolution of the VIII Congress of the RCP(b) “On Work Among the Female Proletariat” in Protocols and Verbatim Reports of Congresses and Conferences of the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union. Eighth Congress of the RCP(b). March 1919. Moscow: Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, 1959. p.436. (In Russ.).

24. Resolution of November 18, 1920 No. 471 “On the Protection of Women’s Health". https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/ (accessed: 21.09.2025) (In Russ.).

25. Pushkareva NL. “The History of Everyday Life” as a Direction of Historical Research. https://www.perspektivy.info/book/istorija_povsednevnosti_kak_napravlenije_istoricheskih_issledovanij_2010-03-16.htm (accessed: 21.09.2025) (In Russ.).

26. Resnyansky SI., Amiantova IS. Gender in Russian History: A Review of the Latest Research. Vestnik RUDN. Seriya: Istoriya Rossii. 2019;18;2:278–301. (In Russ.).

27. Senyavsky AS. Everyday Life as a Methodological Problem of Micro and Macrohistorical Research (Based on the Materials of 20th Century Russian History) in History in the 21st Century: Historical and Anthropological Approach to Teaching and Studying the History of Humanity (Proceedings of the International Internet Conference Held March 20–May 14, 2001 on the Information and Educational Portal www.auditorium.ru) / edited by V. V. Kerov. Moscow: Moscow Society of Science Foundation, 2001. p. 27. (In Russ.).

28. Utehin I. Essays on Communal Life. Moscow: United Humanitarian Publishing House, 2001. 214 p. (In Russ.).

29. Schutz A. The Structure of Everyday Thinking. Socis. 1988;2:129–137. (In Russ.).

30. Schutz A. Selected Works. A world glowing with meaning. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2004. 1054 p. (In Russ.).

31. The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe / edited by Judith Bennett and Ruth Karras. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 765 p.

32. Tosh J. Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-century Britain: Essays on Gender, Family, and Empire. Pearson Education, 2005. 219 p.