Every 8th of March, as the sun peeks through Moscow’s smog-layered sky and the glistening snow recedes from the pavement, men rush to 24-hour florists scattered across the city to assemble their bouquets: bouquets for mothers, for daughters, for grandmothers, for sisters, and for female colleagues.
An official holiday that dates back to the early Soviet era, International Women’s Day is celebrated in Russia with parades, company parties, and even an annual address from the president. The holiday’s roots in the country date back to 1917, when a large faction of female demonstrators changed the course of Russia’s history forever.
One hundred and one years ago, thousands of women took to the streets of the Imperial Russia’s Northern Capital, Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), unfurling banners that called for “Bread and Peace”; the end of widespread food shortages and a withdrawal of Russian forces form WWI. The women came from every strata of society, including urban socialites, textile workers and students.
Over the course of several days, the demonstrations drew countless additional supporters – both men and women. By March 16, Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne, marking an end to the Russian monarchy. The democratically structured Provisional Government immediately granted women the right to vote.
In his famous text “History of the Russian Revolution,” Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky acknowledged the role of the Women’s Day protests in triggering the Russian Revolution. “March 8th was International Women’s Day, and meetings and actions were foreseen. But we did not imagine that this ‘Women’s Day’ would inaugurate the revolution,” Trotsky wrote.
Following the October Revolution of 1917, the newly erected Bolshevik government established equal pay for men and women. Later, Vladimir Lenin made International Women’s Day an official holiday.
Russian women were granted abortion rights in 1920, making the Soviet Union the first ever country to do so, 50 years before the United States. During the first decade of Soviet rule – considered by many historians to be the most progressive decade in its history – the government passed laws against firing pregnant and postpartum women, and granted female citizens equal marriage rights to men,16 weeks paid maternity leave and access to specialist maternity clinics.
But Joseph Stalin’s conservative model swiftly curtailed women’s rights. Abortion was outlawed in the mid 1930s, and women’s societal roles were reduced to the domestic sphere. And although policies and views on women’s rights in Russia have fluctuated over the last 60 years, Vladimir Putin’s Russia continues to sustain a conservative model, with a controversial 2017 law that decriminalized domestic abuse serving as a sign of the times.
PHOTO: USSR postage stamp, 50th anniversary of International Women’s Day, March, 8; 1960/ Wikipedia
Be First to Comment