In the annals of Industrialization, the Soviet experience is unique in its whirlwind rapidity. The vast transformations that shook Europe over the centuries--proletarianization, industrialization, urbanization--were telescoped into a mere decade. The working class grew at an unprecedented rate, changing in size and social composition, and in no other country of the world did women constitute such a significant part of the working class in so short a time. Women at the Gates is the story of a world remade when women entered the waged labor force in unprecedented numbers.
Author(s): Wendy Z. Goldman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 316
Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Contents......Page 9
Acknowledgments......Page 11
Illustrations......Page 13
Tables......Page 15
Acronyms and Abbreviations......Page 17
Introduction......Page 23
1 Guarding the Gates to the Working Class: Women in Industry, 1917–1929......Page 27
Women’s Employment: 1914–1928......Page 31
Sex Segregation in Industry......Page 34
Skill and Wages......Page 37
The “Peculiar Character” of Female Unemployment......Page 38
Fears of “Backward Women”......Page 43
Guarding the Gates to the Working Class......Page 46
Women and Labor Policy......Page 53
2 The Struggle over Working-Class Feminism......Page 55
The Struggle for a Women’s Organization......Page 57
Transforming Life Itself......Page 61
“Liquidationism” in the Factories and the Local Party Organizations......Page 64
Bab’i Bunty: Quelling Rebellion through the Zhenotdel......Page 70
The Liquidation of the Zhenotdel......Page 73
Face toward Production, Forget Byt......Page 78
Work among Women Collapses......Page 82
Labor and the Liquidation of the Zhenotdel......Page 86
3 The Gates Come Tumbling Down......Page 92
Food Shortages, Inflation, and Collectivization......Page 94
Inflation and the Fall in Real Wages......Page 98
Socializing Retail Trade......Page 104
Women and the Composition of the New Working Class......Page 110
Women in Industry......Page 114
Who Were the New Women Workers?......Page 120
“Most Profitable for the State”: Women and Capital Accumulation......Page 125
4 From Exclusion to Recruitment......Page 131
Shifting Paradigms: Unemployment or Labor Shortage?......Page 133
Improvising a Response......Page 138
Policy on the Front Lines: The Labor Exchanges......Page 142
Who Were the Unemployed?......Page 146
Smashing the Old Paradigm: Women as a Key Reserve of Labor......Page 148
Recruiting Women: “Bring Your Wife to Work!”......Page 151
“Free” Market or Planned Deployment?......Page 161
5 “The Five-Year Plan for Women”: Planning Above, Counterplanning Below......Page 165
The Struggle to Include Women in the First Five-Year Plan......Page 166
Gosplan’s “Perspectives on Female Labor”......Page 169
NKT’s “Five-Year Plan for Female Labor in Russia”......Page 173
Debating the Plan for Russia......Page 179
The All-Union Plan......Page 182
Counterplanning from Below: Feminism in the Factories......Page 185
From Small-to Large-Scale Planning: Regendering by Decree......Page 191
Large-and Small-Scale Planning: The Feminist Impulse in Regendering......Page 196
6 Planning and Chaos: The Struggle for Control......Page 201
From Moscow to the Factory: Planning at the Local Level......Page 203
Central Directives, Local Inertia......Page 209
New Patterns or Old? Regendering at the Local Level......Page 215
Assessing the Plans......Page 224
7 Gender Relations in Industry: Voices from the Point of Production......Page 229
The All-Union Meeting for Work among Women......Page 231
Stuck at the Bottom: The Obstacles to Becoming a Skilled Worker......Page 234
Unions, Factory Committees, Labor Exchanges......Page 241
Reports from the Factories: “We Need Workers, Not Women”......Page 245
Gender Resegregation and Conflict......Page 247
Forces for and against Change......Page 250
8 Rebuilding the Gates to the Working Class......Page 256
Labor Turnover and Living Conditions......Page 257
Stalin’s Six Conditions: Blueprint for Class Discipline......Page 264
Wages......Page 266
Rations and Labor Discipline: “Those Who Don’t Work Don’t Eat!”......Page 273
Passportization and the Gates to the Cities......Page 283
The Second Five-Year Plan: Almost Women Only......Page 287
The Levers of Production......Page 294
Conclusion......Page 300
Index......Page 309
