The 1936 decree 'In Defence of Mother and Child', issued during a period of great upheaval in Soviet society, a time of rapid industrialization, the movement of large numbers of people around the country, the drawing of numerous women into full-time employment leaving children unsupervised,' has been regarded frequently as an attempt to strengthen the Soviet family and as yet another aspect of the political repression which was a prominent feature of Soviet politics in the second half of the 1930s. While such political concerns undoubtedly exerted some influence in the change of policy which arose in the mid-1930s, such an interpretation fails to explain why the Communists, supposedly committed to the liberation of women, now felt it desirable to issue a decree which was seemingly contrary to this objective. An examination of the discussion of the issue in the press might provide some insight into the Communist Party's handling of the Women's Question; whether, for example, the Party by the 1930s was still carrying out its commitments regarding women or whether the 1936 decree was a retreat, 'the natural and logical fruit of a Thermidorean reaction',2 as Trotsky commented. Some commentators have interpreted the events as resulting from a bureaucracy indifferent to women's rights, attempting to impose its policy on a hostile society how much validity is there in this view-point? Letters and articles on this subject, of which there were a large number during 1935 and 1936, provide some evidence of the nature of official views and of popular attitudes, despite problems of censorship.3