17th July 1936
''How do the women in the Soviet Union stand towards the new abortion law?'
I would like to first point out the fact that it is an error to place the question of abortion in the foreground in the assessment of the June 27 law. The new law has another and very particular purpose: to give women an even greater possibility than before of combining motherhood with an occupation. Seven out of the eight articles of the law deal with the increased provisions for mother and child. With this law the Soviet state emphasises once again its principled position towards motherhood. Motherhood is not a private affair but a natural social function of women. From the first day of the existence of the Soviet state, Soviet legislation always emphasised the view that women have two primary tasks in the new society: to be active citizens of the state and at the same time not to neglect motherhood. But so that women can fulfill their occupation and citizen’s duty without disadvantage to motherhood, the state must make sure that motherhood is made easier in all possible ways, on the one hand by a broad network of social institutions for children‘s welfare (nurseries, kindergartens, children‘s colonies, homes for mothers, etc.), on the other hand by state material support for the mother, and finally by detailed legislation that governs the question of child support. The new law of June 17 is really a logical extension of this principle.
With this law the Soviet government takes on a huge material obligation in its budget, in order to accomplish the expansion of the institutions for the well-being of mothers and children and make accommodations for women, so that they can fulfill their two tasks without disadvantage to the one by the other.
But what does article 1) of the law mean, which abolishes the former law for the permissibility of abortions and forbids abortions?
The law about the permissibility of abortions was approved in 1920 in the Soviet Union under the pressure of specific unfavourable conditions that prevailed in the country at that time. The Civil War was not yet over. Severe economic living conditions prevailed and the main task for the country fighting for its freedom consisted in using all forces for the building of a new social order. Women as active citizens of the state had to take part, even if their maternal duties were thus left behind.
Although the government legally recognised motherhood as a function of women of equal value as their work for the state, the state could not yet sufficiently guarantee women as mothers. Thus, under these conditions the law permitting abortions was approved.
Now the population of the Soviet Union is living under completely different, more favourable and more fortunate conditions. The well-being of people in the city and particularly in the countryside has been greatly improved over the last years. The position of women as a work group has been strengthened. The time has come for the state and society to do all they can and must to give women the opportunity of not only having an occupation but also of being mothers.
But the old law on abortions did not prevent women from becoming mothers. There was no compulsion for abortions?
Yes, of course there was no compulsion. But there is a psychological factor here, against which the new law will fight strenuously. That is the psychology of men. As I already said, in the family law of the Soviet Union there is a provision about the payment of child support. But it must be said that much too often men have tried to avoid fulfilling their obligations. In many cases it was particularly the man who urged the woman to get an abortion, so that he would not have to pay child support. I would like to particularly point out that the first article of the law contains a very strong provision against anyone who influences a woman to have an abortion. Such an action is considered criminal.
The fight against abortion in the law of June 27 has a very particular purpose: to educate men to a greater responsibility towards their comrades, the women. In article 8 of the new law the question of child support is heavily stressed. Also the non-payment of child support is considered criminal. The law establishes a series of measures to lighten the economic load of motherhood for the woman, while on the other hand the law imposes a much greater obligation than before on the man towards his children,
How does the new law make life easier for women?
First of all we increased the amount of state support for the mother. Second it is punishable to refuse employment to a woman due to her pregnancy. Also the legal pregnancy leave is increased by law to 56 days, also for office workers. Every family that has more than 6 children gets an annual state contribution. The number of nurseries is being greatly increased, as well as the number of kindergartens and other institutions. And finally the financial support by the state for all these institutions will almost double.
I would also like to emphasise that the law logically carries through the social policy of the Soviet Union regarding the family and marriage relations. The law leaves only a certain part of the economic burden to the parents. The state takes on more and more of the moral and economic duties towards the children. The law of June 27 is an indication of the broader development of social institutions for provisions for small children.
Women in the Soviet Union are in the first place independent and equal citizens who participate actively in the building of the new society. And if at the same time they fulfill their maternal duties, then the state stands on their side with all available assistance.
Don’t you believe that the abolition of the old law, which freely provided for abortions in the Soviet Union, will lead to an unfavourable reaction in the other countries, where the radical women are leading a courageous fight for the right to abortion?
I believe that if one judges the law in the correct light, then it can have no negative influence on this courageous fight and will give the opponents of abortion no new weapons.
One cannot compare the conditions under which women in the Soviet Union live and work with the conditions in other countries. As long as the state in the Soviet Union was not able to provide complete, broad and effective assistance for motherhood, and as long as economic prosperity for the broad masses of the population in the Soviet Union was not assured, abortions in the Soviet Union were permitted by law.
In no other country are there such guarantees as those in the Soviet Union that make motherhood easier for women. As long as women or men live under the pressure of unemployment, as long as the level of wages is not sufficient for a family, as long as housing conditions are unfavourable, and as long as the state does not make motherhood easier for every woman in various ways and does not provide social services for mother and child, it is clear that the women must stand up for free abortions.
In what cases and under what criteria is abortion permitted in the Soviet Union?
Under point 1 of article 1) of the new law, the performance of abortions is permitted in cases where pregnancy is a threat to the life of the woman or causes severe consequences to the health of the pregnant woman. Abortions are also permitted if the diseases of the parents could be transmitted to the children. Thus, eugenic principles were taken into account in the new law.
You have not yet given me a direct answer to my first question: how do women in the Soviet Union stand towards the new law?
The law of June 27 in the Soviet Union was approved after an extremely democratic action of the Soviet government. The draft of this law was freely discussed for a whole month in the factories, offices, in the countryside, etc. Thousands of letters were sent in from the women themselves and also from men. The press had discussions for and against the law and many of the proposals for the draft were taken into account in the approval of the law. The majority of the women spoke out in favour of the new law, principally because the law would have a certain effect on the psychology of the men; it should increase the feeling of responsibility of the men for children and women. The women are warm supporters of this law. But it seems to me that the men were somewhat more reserved. This particularly shows the usefulness of the law, that men should be trained to more comradely relations towards women.
>>2366511you leftcoms have abstracted things to the stars, it would be good to come back down on earth now and then and see the reality of
muh workers whom you supposedly care so much about
>>2366495>>2366484central to the Bolsheviks' (and any good Marxist) understanding is that the individual does not exist in a vacuum. As much as 'motherhood' has been hijacked by the right wing nowadays (helped by the left's intentional abandonment of motherhood), it remains true that beyond the desires and whims of the mother and father as individuals, they have a collective
social purpose.
The modern western left shuns these, as good liberals, and consider only 'the right of the individual', which leads them to nt find any problem with the fertility rates in advanced capitalist countries as problematic. If anything, the mere mention of fertility rate is a dogwhistle for fascist propaganda for them.
>>2367255nobody is saying this here
stop making up shit in your mind and projecting them on reality
>>2367294Kollontai was probably unawares of the shift in material conditions in USSR.
https://ondatra.livejournal.com/336718.htmlBakovsky Factory of the Rubber Products started operating in 1936. Yep, it produced condoms, and it was Soviets' first. Spermicide was also being advertised as the correct way of preventing unwanted pregnancies
>>2369740so you are the one ruining all the fun
smh can't have nice things with americans around
>>2371710I guess you should hear her argument to make a judgement.
Either way, she's stated online that she's a communist, so.
>>2367330>motherhood should not something that must be imposed by a state to reproduce workers and make more commodities for marxistsYes it will you lib-cuck-fag because
<According to the materialist conception, the determining factor in history is, in the last resort, the production and reproduction of immediate life.Engels, Origins Of The State, Private Property and The Family
And secondly zero Marxist states in their revolutionary periods allowed abortion. In fact it was only with the return of Revisionism and the ability to hire and fire (instead of a state allocated job to every citizen) that abortion had to be reinstituted as a "pressure valve" on a more de-stabilised and precarious proletariat subject to the whims of the market and with the return of a reserve army of labour (ie unemployment)
<But in future years there were setbacks for socialism in the USSR, and the growth of nationalism am revisionism. In the brief period following Stalin’s death in 1954, capitalism underwent a full-blown restoration consolidated by Khrushchov at the 20th Congress in 1956. Accompanying was a dramatic change in abortion law. The new capitalists needed lies again to oppress workers, and in 1955 they legalized abortion. But this time there was no political justification, as in the case of previous laws of 1919 and 1936. There was talk of “overpopulation” as well as the bourgeois individualist line of woman’s right to control her own body. The change was “interpreted as part of a general easing of restrictions on Soviet citizens.”[1]
<The Soviet law of 1955 was followed quickly by similar changes in the People’s Democracies of Eastern Europe, with the notable exception of Albania.[2] China also followed the Soviet example in 1957, but in China the new policy met with sharp criticism. Since 1954 the Ministry of Health had been encouraging birth control to deal with the “population explosion”. Late in 1957 there was widespread protest at the encouragement of abortion as a method of birth control, and more generally against the promotion of birth control itself. The Ministry of Health retreated: abortion and birth control dropped out of sight. This struggle was part of the fight against capitalist restoration known as the Great Leap Forward of 1958 that included the temporary communization of agriculture, other revolutionary changes, and the first visible signs of the split with Soviet revisionism.
<Birth control campaigns were renewed in 1962.[3] In the ensuing years class struggle sharpened in China, and culminated in another battle against capitalism, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. At its height in 1966 and 1967, birth control again disappeared. But with capitalist consolidation in 1969 and 1970, over-population again became a “problem” for Chinese workers. The famous “barefoot doctors” were its foremost promoters.
<In 1972, Janine Zipper wrote, “Abortion, which has been legal in China since 1957, has become popular in the last three or four years – abortion offers special advantages in that women have the right to fifteen days of paid vacation afterwards.”[4]
<If anything demonstrated the extent of capitalist power in Eastern Europe and Russia it was the tremendous growth of abortion as a “solution” to workers’ problems in feeding and housing their families. The birth rate dropped tremendously. In 1962 and 1965 Hungary held the world record for the lowest rate of population increase. In 1968 East Germany reached “zero population growth”. By 1965 Russia had 80% more abortions than live births.https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ca.firstwave/cpl-abortion/section4.htm >>2366474>thats possible, i suppose. but her political work and writing basically dropped off after her near-expulsion in the 20s, with a few exceptions like this one. it seems more likely that that was resignation than any active agreementHer political work was being a Menshevik up until 1915.
Maybe Kollantai wasn't an authority on Marxism like Trots (for some reason) love to claim her as and was more of a mediocre-to-good Bolshevik cadre like millions of others.
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