The Emergence of Women Revolutionaries in Russia

Abstract

During the 1860's, a few Russian women stepped tentatively into the political arena. A careful reading of trial records yields the names of dozens who carried messages, concealed literature, and allowed letters be sent their homes. Usually the daughters of middling or impoverished nobility, concerned primarily with their own independence, their involvement was brief and of little significance the movement. But by the 1870's, the trickle had become a torrent. Between 1873 and 1877, roughly 15 percent of the 1,611 individuals arrested for political crimes were women, about a quarter of them of common birth.1 In the Executive Committee of the People's Will, almost 30 percent were women; no longer were they content with peripheral roles. Women conducted propaganda in factories, went to the people, and took part in all the assassination attempts against Tsar Alexander II. According Vera Zasulich, one of the most prominent: We participated independently, as the equals of men.2 By the end of the 1870's, revolution had become one of the few options in Russian society open women on terms of quasi-equality.3 This paper will examine the evolution of female radicalism from 1861 1881. It will attempt answer two questions: first, what were the circumstances that produced such a level of female activism? Second, given the sizable proportion of women in the movement, what was their status relative that of men? To speak of female radicalism before the 1860's is virtually impossible. The first opposition circles--the Decembrists, the Petrashevtsy--consisted exclusively of men. If women sympathized, they expressed themselves in private. Some might take pen in hand write of personal tragedy, but political questions were left their husbands. Only after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 did activity in the public sphere become possible for educated women.