Women at the Gates: Gender and Industry in Stalin's Russia by Wendy Z. s> Goldman (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 373 that he might have said something about legal language and courtroom rhetoric in the early post-revolutionary period, and about the language of Soviet diplomacy. Finally, the author's tantalizing comparisons with the era of the French revolution or Nazi Germany (although not, alas, with the modern USA) deserved fuller elaboration. However, there remains a great deal to admire in this engaging, subtle and clearlywrittenbook, which should be required reading for all those interested in Russian social and cultural history,literature,linguistics,and culturalstudies. University ofManchester PETERGATRELL Goldman, Wendy Z. Women at theGates:Gender andIndustyin Stalin'sRussia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2002. xvii + 294 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Index. f 17.95: $23.00 (paperback). THE industrialization drive of Stalin's 'Revolution from Above' has been extensively analysed, and this book revisitsthis question from the perspective of women. In the introduction, Wendy Goldman rightly remarks upon the gender blindness of previous studies, and a few statistics support her point. Almost 4 million women entered the workforcebetween 1929 and I935, by which time women would constitute 42 per cent of all industrial workers (p. i). Indeed, in I932 and I933, women providedthe sole sourceof incoming workers (p. 266). Without doubt, therefore, this period represented a major break in the character of women's work and the composition of the Soviet workingclass. The book is divided into eight chapters. The firsttwo sketchthe economic and political context. A structuraloverview of women in the industrialsector between i9I7 and I929 a story of sex segregation, discrimination, and unemployment is thusfollowedby an account of the struggleoverfeminism in the Communist Partythat would culminate in the abolition in 1930 of the Zhenotdel (women's division).The next five chaptersfocus on the period of the first five-year plan. The massive dislocations of I929-I930, including collectivization and the industrialization drive, resulted in an economic crisis food shortages,inflation, and the fall of realwages that, Goldman argues, propelled women into the labour market. Two wage earners had become necessary to support a family, a fact the state would begin to exploit in I930 as it attempted to gain control of the chaotic situation. With the officialliquidationof unemployment in October I930, the statethuslaunched a campaign in November that included the slogan, 'bringyour wife to work!' This strategyevolved over the coming years as the staterealized that drawing urbanwomen into the workforcewould reduce the strainon the infrastructure (particularlyhousing for migrants). Paradoxically,however, the plan was to integrate the workforce through segregation to bring women into designated areas such as tram driving, the retail and service sector, and new spheres of the economy (where they would be less likely to anger male workers), including the electrical, chemical, and mining industries. While policy from above was often ignored or adapted below, a topic examined in 374 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 chapter six and essentiallyfamiliarto students of the 1930s, the main lines of policy were enacted. The outcome was thus not workplace equality but sharperlines of sex segregation, with women dominating particularareas of the economy and even particular workshops within factories. Nevertheless, discriminationand prejudice continued to characterizewomen's experiences throughout this period, as chapter seven explores, and the state encouraged such criticismas part of its attempt to combat local resistanceand encourage women to work. Finally, the concluding chapter reviews the 'disciplining'of the workforceduring the second five-yearplan, reviewing policies on wages, passports, residence, rations, and so forth. With women proving to be more reliableand indeed more efficientworkers,the stateconceived andencouraged theirpresence as a stabilizingforce. Goldman's aim to reexamine the history of the Stalinist industrialization drive from the perspective of women's history is to be commended. Her argument that women played a key role both as an object of state policy and as a presence on the factoryfloor is convincing. However, this studydoes not live up to the promise stated in the introduction: 'It [the study] uses gender not simply to fill a descriptive gap or to add a missing piece to a largely completed puzzle but rather to rearrange the puzzle itself' (p. 3). While the narrativeof the firsttwo five-yearplans is well-informedandjudicious, it does not fundamentally change our understanding of the period, its dynamics or...