« Une révolution s’approche, qui fait écho à celle du prolétariat ». La Russie avant et après 1917 et la construction d’une nouvelle culture sexuelle

Abstract

Social reform projects often provide for a review of gender relations. Were the changes in the sexual behavior of the Russians in 1917 and later the result of a conscious, persistent and targeted policy of the Bolcheviks? Or were they the result of a spontaneous development of the public consciousness in a country, “pregnant of the revolution”? Was there a single “theory of the Soviet sexual revolution”, and if so, who were its ideologues and adherents?Changes in sexual culture, conceived as a matter of society, appear in the early 1910 years. Comparison of the rhetoric of ideologists of change, reflected in documents and literature before 1917 is the way to reconstruct an important part of cultural and behavioral revolution in the country. A positive consequence of the development of free unions in revolutionary Russia has been the opportunity to speak publicly about sexual and intimate issues. Otherwise, the intrusion of the party and of the government in this private domain allows to study the question from the viewpoint of liberal values, of feminism in particular.