Women workers in the Soviet interwar economy
Subtitle: from 'protection' to 'equality'
By: Melanie Ilic̆.
Contributors: University of Birmingham. Centre for Russian and East European Studies.
Series: Studies in Russian and East European history and society; Studies in Russian and East European history and society
Publisher: Macmillan in association with Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Basingstoke
Language: eng
Number of pages: 241
Subjects: Women -- Employment -- Soviet Union -- History; Soviet Union -- Economic conditions -- 1917-1945
Description: This book examines changes in official policy towards the introduction of protective labour legislation for women workers in the Soviet Union in the period 1917-41. The major areas of legislative enactment are identified and analysed. In the 1920s emphasis was placed on the need for the 'protection' of female labour by the agencies responsible for regulating women's role in industrial production, the Commissariat of Labour (Narkomtrud) and the trade unions (VTsSPS).

Despite this, the protective labour laws were never fully implemented and were irregularly enforced. With the mass recruitment of women workers to the Soviet industrialisation drive by the early 1930s, the abolition of Narkomtrud in 1933 and the subordination of the trade unions, labour protection issues were often ignored as women were encouraged to play a more 'equal' role in the production process.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-232) and index.

WERC