10 October, 2013
Motherhood: You Can’t Deprive Yourself

Anatolii Chernov: Children are our Future (1946)
“Don’t deprive yourself of the joys of Motherhood”
http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&show=images&SubjectID=1936abortion&Year=1936&navi=byYear
The emergence of the Bolsheviks and liberation of citizens in terms of divorce, abortion, and other cultural values met opposition in the 1930s. The “new Soviet” with values and morals altered by the government were now being curtailed, specifically for women when “[o]n May 26, 1936 the draft of a law ‘On the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood’ was published in Soviet newspapers” (Seventeen Moments). Freedom to divorce and have abortions was seen as a threat to the family unit, so the government took action to reinforce the family values it had originally aided in debilitating (at least in the minds of the leaders).
The 1930s evidence of “a declining birth rate” raised worry over the future of the Soviet Union, ushering in a law against abortion and supporting growth of the family. In Seventeen Moments, according “[t]o Stalin, giving birth was ‘a great and honorable duty’ which was ‘not a private affair but one of great social importance'” (Seventeen Moments). In other words, motherhood was for the state and for society, not a light decision that could jeopardize the future of the Soviet Union.
The greatest opposition came from young women in cities whose concerns were the “strains that bearing and raising children would impose on their pursuit of a career, on available living space, and other quotidian concerns” (Seventeen Moments). For example, a mother wrote, from the Discussion in Izvestiia, May 29, 1936, stating, “[f]or eighteen years I went out to work and was a member of a Trade Union for fourteen years (1918-32). Then I had a daughter. After the girl had… frequently fallen ill, the doctors advised me to take her home and look after her personally. I was working at the Soyuz factory where I was released after procuring a certificate stating the reason for my absence. But after a while the Group organizer refused to mark my Trade Union card and thus annulled my standing as a worker…I think this was wrong” (Seventeen Moments). Contemporary controversy over a woman’s rights over her body were not within the debate.

V. Baiuskin: Children are Happiness for a Soviet Family (1940)
http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&show=images&SubjectID=1936abortion&Year=1936&navi=byYear
The “On the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood” law was passed in 1936 and “[t]he number of officially recorded abortions dropped sharply from 1.9 million in 1935 to 570,000 in 1937, but thereafter began to climb, reaching 755,000 in 1939. Despite criminal liability for performing illegal abortions, the actual number was probably a good deal higher” (Seventeen Moments).
As stated in Freeze, Stalin proclaimed, “‘[l]ife has become more joyous’…the myth of a joyful people achieving great feats and adoring their genial leader – was woven into the fabric of Soviet Life” (Freeze 362). The government pushed the “happy life” of a family, pushing to continue population growth and family growth, rather than push independence and individuality. Like so many things, the Bolsheviks and Stalin were pulling back on past promises and tightening their grip on power. The peasants were systematically put under government control, working for the collective. Politically, the de-kulakization pushed the disbursement of the peasantry, removing the “richer” peasants from the stratified peasantry. Further, the “mir” was dissolved and an internal passport system was implemented. The economy of the peasants was seen as “backward” and “capitalist” leading to collectivized farms more in line with the Soviet way of life. State farms, collective farms and machine tractor stations established an economy based on collectivized farming. This allowed for political control and modernization. The MTS provided a mode be make make use of costly/vital materials.
The Soviet Union had to be sustained at all costs. Promoting the family led to a collectivized society, rather than promoting independence and individuality. The political motivations to dissolve the peasantry to a singular level, the economics of collectivized farming, and the cultural shift would lead the Soviet Union into the 1940s and World War II, with Stalin at the helm.
Seventeen Moments: http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1936abortion&Year=1936&navi=byYear
Seventeen Moments: http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1936izabort1&SubjectID=1936abortion&Year=1936
Gregory L. Freeze, Russia: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 362.
12 October, 2013 @ 10:41 pm
I think it is very interesting that to the Stalin and the rest of the government pushed the idea of a “happy family” but still tightened their control on society. Good job 🙂
14 October, 2013 @ 7:40 pm
I think it’s interesting that you talked about how Stalin said that giving birth was a very important deal, but the citizens of Russia thought of all the implications in brought about with working, living conditions, etc. It seems like the government was pushing the happy life onto people when really it was anything but that. With the tightening grip on society like you mentioned, it seems like it would be hard to be happy with all of the other problems and concerns.
15 October, 2013 @ 12:42 am
I think that it is extremely interesting that you mentioned that the abortion debate in the Soviet Thirties did not include complaints from women that the government had no right to regulate their bodies. This is completely different from the current debates taking place in America, where the right of a women is the prominent argument for allowing abortion. The Soviet abortion debate is also completely different because the anti-abortion argument is not based on religious sentiments. Rather, as you discussed, arguments from both sides were overwhelmingly economic. Although they were both rational, it seemed that the abortion argument produced a type of catch 22. If abortion was allowed, then less children would be born and in turn the work force would be smaller. If abortion was not allowed, then more women would be forced to stay home and raise children and in turn the work force would be smaller. Your post does an excellent job of highlighting this unique problem, and showing how in the Soviet Thirties economic problems and social ones were intertwined. Great work this week.
15 October, 2013 @ 4:26 am
I really enjoyed your post. I think that this problem faces a lot of modern day countries and they could stand to learn a lesson or two from the Soviets. By moving the woman’s role outside of their house, they were no longer tied to family. Women could also choose to end a marriage, which, as you stated, ended family ties. They wanted to give women rights but at the same time feared not having family ties and enough population for the future.
16 October, 2013 @ 6:38 pm
Thanks for taking on this difficult topic and engaging it so thoughtfully. Courtney’s comments are right on target as well. Can you see the emerging contours of the “double burden” Soviet women carried? After all of the upheaval of the revolutionary era, it’s not terribly surprising that the regime would take steps to support traditional family values in order to stabilize the family, and elevate the status of childbearing and child-rearing. But the contradictions of the abortion ban were huge as well.