Women Workers in the Soviet Interwar Economy: From 'Protection' to 'Equality'

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.