The Treatment of Women in Stalinist Propaganda

The Treatment of Women in Stalinist Propaganda
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Explore the Treatment of Women in the Stalinist Propaganda
The chronological account of events of the Soviet Union under the reign of the socialist dictator Stalin features violent repression and oppression leading to the killing of millions of people and the exiling of tens of thousands of people in search of political asylum from the ruthless regime. Stalin’s regime was also characteristic of a prevalent system of forced labor, police controls, indiscriminate imprisonment of individuals and groups, and widespread restrictions assembly, organization, and all kinds of public speech. The one-party communist system dictated over the diverse aspects of the social, political, and economic domains of the Soviet society. The dictator’s communist party oversaw the development and implementation of policies and key decisions pertaining to foreign relations, political appointments, and even cultural activities. Stalin’s demand for unquestionable loyalty reigned supreme among both the political elite and the peasant populations in the country sides. The ruthless dictator’s reign of fear and terror allowed him unrestricted access instruments and tools of consolidating his power, such as the diverse media channels. For instance, Stalin embarked on widespread use of iconography as the key medium for promulgating his communist ideals and perceived milestones of his government in fostering the country’s social, political, and economic development. The often misleading interpretations of communist teachings, ideas, and political opinions were integrated with country’s socialist ideologies defining the social, political, and economic domains of the Soviet Union. It suffices, therefore, that Stalin embraced propagandist approach in convincing and instructing the masses on his repressive and utterly oppressive regime coined as Stalinism. Through government control over every media including film, literature, journalism, and art or iconography, the Soviet government embraced diverse propaganda techniques to consolidate its power and oppressive dominion over the people. This paper provides explores the treatment of women in Stalinist propaganda highlighting the different roles of women in the Soviet Union state’s propaganda techniques from 1925-1953.[Liu, C. 2019. "Stalin's "New Soviet Woman"." Socialogy Mind 247-257.] [Reid, S. E. 1998. "All Stalin's Women: Gender and Power in Soviet Art of the 1930s." Slavic Review 133-173.]
Background
The widespread use of equally diverse propagandist techniques thrived on the fact that most of the post-Revolution Soviet population was illiterate. The post-Revolution Bolshevik regime was characteristic of widespread use of visual propaganda to communicate the new government’s ideals to the Russian population. Among such propagandist techniques embraced by the Bolshevik government was the allegorical depictions of women around 1917-1920. However, in the early 1920s the visual propagandist representations of women took a new direction with new depictions of women as peasants and workers. The shift towards propagandist representations of peasant women from the 1920s was a result of the lack of support for the Bolshevik regime in the countryside. The Bolshevik’s orientation to the working woman created dissent among the peasant women who felt left out in the post-Revolution regime especially after their active participation in the Soviet Revolution. The new regime under Stalin would then capitalize on the Bolshevik’s mistake by embracing a perceived inclusive approach to governance and the emancipation of peasant woman through diverse propagandist techniques. Stalinism embraced women empowerments as previously intended by their heightened calls for freedom and equality during the revolution. The dictatorial regime advocated for the depiction of women as the basis for industrial productivity and the increasingly reproductive nature of the Soviet Union. Stalin initiated the development and implementation of domestic policies emphasizing on the propagandist depiction of the “New Soviet Woman”. Among the representation of women in Stalinist propaganda depicting the “New Soviet” included the representation of peasant women as social reformers, workers, mothers, and even as soldiers. Such representations of Soviet women feature in most of the Soviet media under the government’s control. Iconographic representations informed the depiction of women in other media including journalism, film, and literature.[Ibid] [Ibid] [Ibid] [Liu, C. 2019. "Stalin's "New Soviet Woman"." Sociology Mind 247-257.]
The Origin of the “New Woman” Stalinist Propaganda
The propagandist representation of the Soviet women in Stalinist propaganda is rooted in the country’s post-Revolution politics embraced by the Bolshevik government in 1917. The Bolshevik government embarked on a woman empowerment campaign upon seizing power by implementing the 1918 family code guaranteeing women equal rights and freedoms to their male counterparts. The new social changes embraced by the Bolshevik government led to the increase in the number of women in the Russian workforce and participation in the nation’s political domain. Women were encouraged to contribute to the overall well-being and development of their communities and to participate in elections by voting. The women’s call for equality and freedom fueled the revolution against the former regime to usher in the Bolshevik’s government under Lenin. The new government felt indebted to women for their support during the revolution and thus fostering the belief that women should have the same rights and freedoms in the new dispensation. The Bolshevik government highlighted their new achievements in women empowerment across different media channels by depicting women as active and productive individuals with the same value to the growth and development of the nation as their male counterparts. Lenin’s government was characteristic of widespread use of iconographic representations of the working woman to reiterate the significant role played by women in steering the country’s development objectives across the social, political, and economic domains.[Bonnell, V. E. 1991. "The Representation of Women in Early Soviet Political Art." Russian Review 267-288.] [Reid, S. E. 1998. "All Stalin's Women: Gender and Power in Soviet Art of the 1930s." Slavic Review 133-173.]
However, the government was only using the propagandist theme of gender equality to consolidate the support of the perceived powerful Soviet women in attending to the needs of the country. Among the depiction of the Soviet Woman Worker included the poster titled 1-oe Maia vserossiiskii subbotnik by renowned Soviet artist Dmitri Moor. The poster showcased a Soviet working woman whose physical features were similar to that of the male figure in the same poster while working an anvil. Though the poster depicted some equality in the roles of both parties in fostering the country’s economic development, the gender roles are conspicuous enough to detect the male domination in the previously patriarchal society of the former regime. Nikolai Kogut’s poster, Oruzhiem my dobili vraga or We Finished off the Enemy with Weapons, also reiterates the dominant role of the male gender highlighted by Dmitri Moor’s poster. Many of the propagandist representation of women in the Bolshevik era featured such attempts at emphasizing gender equality and freedom but failed to address the underlying gender stereotypical influences which encouraged women oppression. The Bolshevik government’s orientation towards the urban working woman further marginalized the peasant woman and thus leading to a lack of support for the government in the country sides. Stalin’s regime from 1924 capitalized on the mistakes made by the Bolshevik regime and embarked on a perceived dedicated commitment to embrace the peasant woman in the country’s social, political, and economic domains.[Ibid] [Ibid]
Stalinist Propagandist Depiction of Women as Social Workers and Reformers
The authoritative development and implementation of government policies promoting the inclusion of the “New Soviet Woman” across the outlined social domains was positively received by Soviet women, including the peasant women, as a step towards real empowerment of women. Stalin’s regime was characterized by increased entry of women into the Soviet labor force and learning institutions but with most of them in the low paying occupational fields. Like in the previous regime, the Stalinist era featured widespread use of propagandist techniques aimed at controlling and consolidating the support of women. However, the dictator would only use the propagandist techniques to reinforce the appeal of women as the basis of increased industry productivity and the country’s reproduction. Unlike in the previous regime, Stalinist’s propaganda techniques embraced heroine depictions of women in posters and other media channels through conventional gender codes to reiterate the importance of submissiveness to the oppressive regime. Among the Stalinist propaganda depictions of the peasant woman as a reformer and a social worker is Vera Mukhina’s, Worker and Kolkhoz (Collective Farm) Woman statue in Moscow that depicts a peasant woman raising a sickle reflecting the peasant’s rise in class and status.
Women and the Battlefields
Soviet propaganda posters encouraged women to join the army and be at the forefront of the war. In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, which threw the world into war. The Soviet Union and Germany had signed a non-aggression pact, which meant that Hitler could not invade the former. However, Hitler dishonored the pact and invaded Russia. Because of the betrayal, Stalin propagated anti-German sentiments, with posters asking for the murder of Germans, and encouraging all the citizens to go to war and defend their nation. The Soviet Union encouraged women to join the army where they could play different roles. For instance, they could serve as soldiers, nurses, mechanics, and any other form that could bring victory to Russia. As a result, about 800,000 women joined the Red Army during World War II and fought on the battlefield. Unlike American war posters which encouraged women to participate in the war while remaini...