"How successful were the Bolsheviks in achieving gender equality?"

TibsKirk · 2017-02-11T03:43:50+00:00

Conclusion is that communism was very successful in the public sphere, but not as successful in penetrating, monitoring, and regulating the private activities of the home.

So the implied critique is pretty revealing. Maybe they would have had more success with those two way TVs in 1984.

William__F0ster · 2017-02-11T14:14:22+00:00

Normally I would be hesitant to pass comment on something like this because, after all, Goldman is not some Buzzfeed click-bait merchant but a bona fide "Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor" of the "Department of History, Carnegie Mellon University"

But this article is trying to pool the wool over people's eyes. Or it's bullshit - take your pick.

For instance:

The Bolsheviks were very successful in promoting gender equality in the new Soviet republic ...

Excuse me? Exactly how is she defining "very successful" there? And for that matter, how is she defining "the new Soviet republic"?

No sooner had Lenin and the Bolsheviks taken power than the country was plunged into a vicious and protracted Civil War lasting 5 years and taking an estimated 1,000,000 lives of combatants as well as a further 7,000,000 non-combatants who starved to death or died of exposure etc.

And then of course there were the purges of Felix Dzerzhinsk's Cheka (Internal Secret Police) who set about kidnapping, murdering and torturing Christians, Priests, the Bourgeoisie, the 'Kulaks' (wealthy peasant farmers and merchants), political opponents and pretty much anyone else Lenin felt was ideologically or politically unhygienic.

So that's 1917-1922 during which the country was gripped in war, terror, famine and chaos and at the end of which Stalin came to power - Stalin who even Goldman concedes:

... Stalin had come to power and the state rejected many of the revolutionary ideas that inspired its early legislation. It continued to support childcare centres and women’s paid employment, but it abolished the Zhenotdel (Women’s Department of the Central Committee), made divorce more difficult to get, cracked down on men who refused to pay alimony, resurrected the idea of the family as the basic unit of society, and prohibited abortion.

The only way in which they can possibly be considered to have been "very successful in promoting gender equality" is that they managed to get some thing written down - but seeing as they were written during a time of vast civil strife, war and discord what they wrote down was utterly meaningless. And then it was effectively erased by Stalin as soon as the country began to recover some sense of order and stability.

So while Goldman is not lying as such, she certainly seems to be working very hard to leave you with a false impression of what was actually happening at the time.

rockinhard130 · 2017-02-11T06:02:39+00:00

Any favorable mention of Soviet revolution just makes me sick to my stomach. THIS is the result of it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4076244/Distressing-photos-1920s-Russian-famine-turned-hopeless-peasants-cannibals-five-million-people-starved-death.html http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm

Don't read before bed or after eating. Reading this will take you to a dark place in your soul and have you contemplating unfathomable choices.

Title	"How successful were the Bolsheviks in achieving gender equality?"
Author	jamminnummeruno
Upvotes	3
Comments	4
Date	February 11, 2017 3:38 AM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/5tbysd/how_successful_were_the_bolsheviks_in_achieving/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/how-successful-were-the-bolsheviks-in-achieving.932167 https://theredarchive.com/post/932167

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