Women at the Gates: Gender and Industry in Stalin's Russia

316 Pages·2002·5.053 MB·English

by  Wendy Z. Goldman

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WOMEN AT THE GATES
In the annals of industrialization, the Soviet experience is unique in its
whirlwindrapidity.ThevasttransformationsthatshookwesternEurope
over the centuries – proletarianization, industrialization, urbanization –
wereintheSovietUniontelescopedintoameredecade.Theworkingclass
grew at an unprecedented rate, changing in size and social composition.
Even more striking was the critical role of women: in no country of the
worlddidtheycometoconstitutesuchasignificantpartoftheworking
classinsoshortatime.Aswomenfloodedindustriestraditionallydom-
inated by men, they undercut strict hierarchies within the factories and
forcedmaleworkerstoreexaminetheirideasaboutskill,“masculine”and
“feminine”work,andtheroleofwomenintheworkplace.Thestate’suse
offemalelaborwascloselyintertwinedwiththegreatupheavalsofearly
Soviethistory:accumulationofcapitalfortheindustrializationdrive,the
urban food crisis, collectivization, and peasant migration to the cities.
BasedonnewRussianarchivalmaterials,WomenattheGatesisthefirst
social history of Soviet women workers in the 1930s. It is the story of a
worldremade,fromaboveandfrombelow,asplanners“regendered”the
entireeconomyandwomenenteredtheranksofwagedlaborinunprece-
dentednumbers.
WendyZ.GoldmanisProfessorofHistoryatCarnegieMellonUniversity.
She is author of Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy
and Social Life, 1917–1936 (Cambridge University Press, 1993), which
wontheBerkshirePrizeforthebestbookinhistorywrittenbyawoman.
She travels frequently to Russia and is the author of many articles on
Sovietsocialhistory.

WOMEN AT
THE GATES
GENDER AND INDUSTRY
IN STALIN’S RUSSIA
WENDY Z. GOLDMAN
CarnegieMellonUniversity
  
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge  , United Kingdom
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521780643
© Wendy Z. Goldman 2002
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of
relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place
without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2002
- 
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isbn--13 978-0-521-78553-2 paperback
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Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
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Thisbookisdedicated
toMarcusRediker
and
tothememoryofourbelovedfriend
StevenSapolsky

Contents
Acknowledgments pageix
ListofIllustrations xi
ListofTables xiii
AcronymsandAbbreviations xv
Introduction 1
1 GuardingtheGatestotheWorkingClass:Womenin
Industry,1917–1929 5
2 TheStruggleoverWorking-ClassFeminism 33
3 TheGatesComeTumblingDown 70
4 FromExclusiontoRecruitment 109
5 “TheFive-YearPlanforWomen”:PlanningAbove,
CounterplanningBelow 143
6 PlanningandChaos:TheStruggleforControl 179
7 GenderRelationsinIndustry:VoicesfromthePoint
ofProduction 207
8 RebuildingtheGatestotheWorkingClass 234
Conclusion 278
Index 287
vii