A tireless woman in New England recently told me that she had fought for thirty years to get “a decent inspection of women’s labor in our state” and that they would “probably lose it at the next election.”

Another citation from Strong's work that proves to be timeless once again. In the midst the current elimination of trans people by the American GOP, activists fought for basic recognition for transgender identities only to have it stomped on by electoral politics that declared trans issues too divisive and a hot button topic. Women's rights is now constantly under attack by reactionaries which will only intensify with the economic decay of the US. 

This chapter does bring back the archaic language used by Strong but it does well in service of portraying just how brutal women's oppression was in eastern Europe before the formation of the Soviet Union.

“The emancipation of women is not only the work of women Communists but of men Communists also, just as the fight for socialism is a mutual fight,” said Krupskaia, widow of Lenin. The Communists hold that the gains in women’s freedom made through centuries have been chiefly due to change in methods of production.

The image evoked by “mutual fight” explains how radical feminism (or better known as liberal feminism) failed in not focusing on the economic order which formed the oppressive hierarchies in the first place. Intersectionality is not just about inclusion but about highlighting the “mutual-ness” of struggle. 

Yet in every village and factory women still had to fight their way over the traditional habits of centuries, which lingered in their own souls and in the souls of men.

The great part about this chapter is that Strong not only goes over the resulting overhaul of women's rights in the USSR but also the internal, personal conflict to get there. She spends her time going over vignettes of several women who, despite the equality from above, had to carve out their own success. 

“They laughed at the first woman we elected to the village Soviet so much that she could do nothing; at the next election we put in six women and now it is we who laugh.” This was a typical statement.

The cathartic satisfaction in “This was a typical statement” is palpable. Stories of women in political office in the US are noted as being exceptional but the vast majority of seats are still taken by men. 

But my man spent his money on drink and I’ll buy him nothing. I’ve told him if he gets drunk again I’ll throw him out of the house and not even feed him. The farm will back me up, unless he quits drinking and loafing. I can get along without him in the collective farm.”

This story is echoed in Humberto Solás black and white film Lucía (1968) where the peasant version of Lucía after the Cuban Revolution suffers under the abuse of her machismo fiance. However, the other women of the collective farm are able to protect Lucía from his advances as well as the literacy brigades allowing her to learn how to read and write. The film ends on a melancholic note where Lucía eventually takes back her abusive husband, perhaps as a way to represent how the work to fully eliminate machismo and the patriarchy is still not over. 

When young folks in Tashkent schools spent vacations agitating for women’s freedom, one girl’s body was sent back in a cart. Accompanying the hacked pieces were the words: “This is your women’s freedom.”

In another locality of Central Asia, nine murders of women occurred before any were discovered by central authority; every attempt of a woman to get justice was met by local vengeance…

…

When one woman was murdered by her husband for this unveiling, a public trial was held in a great mass meeting; the murderer was swiftly condemned and executed.

Strong doesn't shy away from the brutal reality of women's oppression, especially in underdeveloped regions of the USSR where local cultures attempted to stay dominate. It's also not lost on me that the imagery of unveiling women, an imperialist trope in the US, takes on a revolutionary character as the unveiling coincided with the increased economic rights of those local women who always remained at the head of their own liberation. 

The US export of a white, liberal feminism to central Asia has done very little to actually improve the lives of brown women as the battle was not only cultural, but economic. The occupation of these nations by the US provided an ample rebuttal for the existing sexist power structures to challenge social revolution. The tragedy of the 2 decade long occupation of Afghanistan did not progress the rights of women and in fact only worsened it through the subjugation of the whole Afghani people that was only driven out by the Taliban coalition.  

The roar of the factory is in me.
It gives me rhythm,
It gives me energy,

Another aspect of Strong's depiction of the Soviet World is that labor is respected in a way that's simply absent in capitalist nations. On episode 191 the Citations Needed podcast (How Media's Use of 'The Economy' Flattens Class Conflict), the hosts and the guest go over the idea that different classes in society live in different economies. The working class in a capitalist society wants to avoid “the economy” being done to them while the capitalist class wants to weaponize the economy for more extraction. For the working class, selling their labor is as perilous as a predator needing to catch it's prey to not starve that day. In the Soviet world, people's labor is not competed for but organized in a way that benefits the community in a way that's plainly visible. 

Policeman Lily travels fearlessly through dark woods about the city to round up criminal gangs. On one occasion, when she was convoying a prisoner caught setting fire to turf fields, she was set upon in the woods by two of his accomplices and brought back to jail not one criminal but three.

This has to be the most enjoyable chapter to read, Strong's journalism comes out in full force here and she really makes you believe in the dynamic lives of these women, something in 1936, was nearly unheard of in capitalist nations.

The assumption behind the Soviet marriage code is the equal human dignity of both parties in deciding their intimate relations—a decision with which the state has no right to interfere…

…

“To compel a woman either to have or not to have children we would consider an infringement of human rights,” said Dr. Milashkevich. “If she decides to have them, the state gives every assistance…"

The legal framework behind marriage equality almost a century before a similar thing was decided by a unelected lawyer in the US. Plus, the right to an abortion delivered in the most uncomplicated terms that is purposefully not ratified in the US.

even to the point of expulsion, persons who cause social havoc through their sexual instability. But they consider concrete situations, not traditions.

Fuckboys not allowed in the USSR.

My thoughts summarized:

This has to be my favorite chapter of This Soviet World so far. If I were to share an excerpt of this work with others it would be this chapter. The way that Strong is able to connect the Soviet economic system to the revolution in the rights of women is remarkable for its optimism and pride. The journalistic fervor of Strong's writing helps reinforce that the women of the Soviet world chose their own fates and that the state only served as a rising economic tide.