User talk:Rfgovaerts/First All-Russian Women's Congress

The First All-Russian Women’s Congress was the name given to two congresses, the first one organized by the All-Russian League for Women’s Equality in 1908. The second one by the women’s section of the Congress of Soviets Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasant’s Deputies in 1918. After these two congresses, the Russian Communist Party reorganized the women’s section by creating the Zhenotdel.

First All-Russian Women’s Congress of 1908

An important source of inspiration for this congress was the growing resistance to autocracy within the intelligentsia and increasingly prominent middle class or bourgeoisie, drawn to liberal ideas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was against this background that the then current women’s organizations in Russia, including the Russian Women’s Mutual Philanthropic Society, felt the time was right to explore and debate their discontent and formulate an agenda for united action. The process to obtain consent from the authorities began in 1902, which finally lead to June 1, 1905 being fixed as the date of the congress. As of January, 1905, however, with Tsar Nicholas II battling the forces of resistance in what became known as the [1905 Revolution], other feminists groups were encouraged to become publicly engaged which lead them to consolidate forces and form the [All-Russian Union of Equal Rights for Women] towards the end of February, 1905. Nicholas II, in an effort to appease the resistance, introduced reforms, including a form of representative government, the [State Duma]. These reforms also lead to the authorities widening the scope of the originally planned congress of June, 1905, from just covering women’s achievements in education and philanthropy to discussing their economic and social position as well as their political and civil rights and the timing of the congress was moved to 1908. In the meantime, in 1908, the Union dissolved due to internal division but was succeeded by the formation of the [All-Russian League of Equal Rights for Women] which took over the organization of the congress to start on December 10, 1908 in [Petrograd].

The conference was divided into four separate sections covering women’s voluntary work, women’s economic position across social classes, political rights, and education. The congress was well attended with the registration of more than 1,000 delegates with approximately 750 from the capital itself, 50 from Moscow and the rest from all over Russia. The ethnic make-up of the delegates was mostly Russian although national minorities were also represented. Some of the delegates were part of the upper classes but the majority was middle-class. Other social classes, including working women and peasant women were poorly or barely represented.

The congress was strictly supervised by the authorities. By the time it started, Tsar Nicholas II had recommenced his campaign of repression in an effort to regain control over increasing public participation in society brought about by his reforms for fear they would lead to more demands for more reforms and further unrest. A few days into the congress, an intense session lead to the meeting room being emptied by police. Kollantai, a leader of the Workers Group, which was especially monitored, fled the congress to avoid arrest. According to Historian Linda Edmondson, despite the intimidating presence of the police, there was a “remarkably free (and passionate) exchange of opinions”.

When the congress closed on December 17, it had failed to reach agreement on political issues. The success of the congress was compromised by too many diverse factions pursuing different goals which produced an irreconcilability which could not be bridged. According to Edmondson, this was due, to a large extent, to the diverse views on the social and economic aspects of the subjugation of women. The congress had only passed one resolution which was thought not to provoke the police and it stated that the “’principal goal’ of women must be the ‘establishment of a democratic system on the basis of universal suffrage without distinction of sex, religion or nationality’ as the ‘chief instrument’ for their full emancipation and liberation”. To further this goal, women were to ‘devote their energies both to existing general organizations and to the creation of separate women’s unions, which will unite and attract women in general to conscious political and social life”. The Workers Group could not support this resolution and exited the congress.

First All-Russian Women’s Congress of 1918

The idea to organize this congress arose out of the Bolsheviks’ effort to win support amongst women which had started in earnest in June of 1917. This effort culminated in the organization of a Petrograd women’s conference on November 6, 1917. [Aleksandra Kollontai] and [Klavdiya Nikolayeva] took leading roles during this conference and one of the major proposals that came out of the conference was to reconvene the First All-Russian Women’s Congress on the first anniversary of the [February Revolution] which coincided with [International Women’s Day] in 1918. The planned date fell victim to a combination of political developments including the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and a special party congress which was organized to debate the Brest-Litovsk Treaty in March of 1918. Even though Kollontai had resigned her position as Commissar of Social Welfare over the treaty, she continued to have a strong influence within the Bolshevik party. Even though the Bolsheviks enacted decrees for the protection of women and child labor, social insurance, pregnancy leave and equal rights for contracting and dissolving marriage relationships, no program had yet been implemented for a broader emancipation of women. All energy was focused on the [Civil War]. By June of 1918, Kollantai, having observed the increasing toll of the war on women, managed to convince [Yakov Sverdlov] to authorize her to organize the First All-Russian Congress of Women Workers and Peasants in November of that same year in [Moscow] instead.

Nearly 1,200 women, including approximately 120 peasant delegates, came to Moscow from all corners of Russia, which was considered remarkable given the hazards and dangers of travel during time of war. In the absence of a sufficiently large venue for the congress itself as well as provisions and accommodation for the delegates, it required Kollontai threatening the party leadership with possible consequences of civil unrest, to get their assistance instead of their admonishment for poor planning, which allowed to congress to convene in the [House of Unions] on November 16, 1918.

The congress was opened by a speech of [Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov], better known as [Vladimir Lenin] on November 19. Lenin confirmed that the [Soviet Republic] was committed to abolishing all restrictions on women’s rights. He also confirmed the unprecedented steps taken by the Bolshevik party in providing freedom of divorce, abolishing the concept or illegitimate children and removing political restrictions women were subject to prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. He stated: “Nowhere else in the world have equality and freedom for working women been so fully established”. Historian Carol Eubanks Hayden explained the hesitancy on the part of the Bolshevik’s party leadership to give separate and special treatment to women in consideration of the danger of creating a split between the interests of men and women within the proletariat. That the Bolsheviks now realized they could not take the support of women for granted was evident when Lenin confirmed to the conference: “There can be no socialist revolution unless very many working women take a big part in it”. Kollontai’s speech to the congress confirmed her stature in the Bolshevik party for she took responsibility to explain the manner in which the family will be preserved in a communist state. She confirmed her sympathy for the confusion and concern caused to working women as well as men, as they saw “old ways and customs disappearing, and the entire existence of the proletariat family is taking a different shape”. She explained that a woman’s husband as the breadwinner turning the woman into a household slave, has become a dated capitalist and bourgeois notion and that women will now be able to count for support on the collective or the state. This support will come in the form of housekeeping and raising children irrespective of whether the mother is marries or not. This will allow the woman, whether she is married or not or whether she has children or not, to become productive members of the state. Moreover, the state of family or marriage will evolve from domestic slavery of women to “a comradely and loving union of two free, independent, self-supporting equal members of communist society”.

Other topics covered were the role of women in support of the [Civil War] and women and the party, government, trade unions and education. According to Hayden, the Pravda headline in relation to this congress “Mobilization of Women for the Red Front” was an indication that the party saw the congress primarily as a means organize women support of the war and that the other topics covered were of secondary importance.

Legacy

According to Edmondson, even though the 1908 congress failed to encourage discussion of women’s issues in society at large, it confirmed that women were capable of taking initiative and as a consequence, “it made a significant contribution to the feminist movement in Russia in the last years of the old regime”. In relation to the 1918 congress, Hayden argues that it was the organizational work for the First All-Russian Congress of Working Women of 1918, which finally lead to the creation of a permanent section devoted to women affairs within the Bolshevik Party. This evolved into the [Zhenotdel], the women’s department of the [Secretariat] of the [Central Committee] of the [All-Russian Communist Party], the former [Bolsheviks] which was set up in 1919 by the same two prominent [Russian feminist revolutionaries], [Aleksandra Kollontai] and [Inessa Armand] who organized this congress.