On March 8th, 1917, the strike began. Their demands were simple: peace and bread. A deteriorating economy and repeated failures on the battlefields of World War I made both desperately scarce. Women implored male workers to join their cause, and word of the protest spread like wildfire from factory to factory. Demonstrations swelled as more workers, including men, rallied in support. In all, more than 100,000 participated in demonstrations that day.

Czar Nicholas had survived a revolution in 1905. This time, he didn’t have the support of the Russian people. He ordered soldiers to suppress the protests. Many refused and joined the protesters instead. He ordered the military to quell the uprising. However, his command fell on deaf ears. Soldiers, witnessing the women's plight, were sympathetic. Women distributed flyers to soldiers, and rather than fire on them, many refused the Czar’s orders - some even joined the women's revolution. 

In the following days the demonstrations and strikes grew into an insurrection. Popular support for the Czar evaporated, and less than a week later, he abdicated his throne to his brother, who refused to accept it. After the czar’s abdication, the new Communist state became the first government of a major power to grant women the right to vote. Lenin took it one step further and declared March 8th Women's Day, and an official Soviet holiday. 

The Russian revolution was the catalyst for the celebration of women internationally. Other countries began to celebrate their own Women’s Day, and in 1975, the United Nations declared March 8th International Women’s Day. Eager to disassociate the holiday from its Socialist origins, the UN assembly noted that it was to be observed “on any day of the year by member states, in accordance with their historical and national traditions.”

The ‘New Soviet Woman’ Enters the Workforce

The Constitution of the USSR guaranteed equality for women: "Women in the USSR are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social, and political life." To encourage greater female participation in the new Socialist utopia, the state set up a specialist women's department, the Zhenotdel, in 1919. This department worked to construct the image of the "new Soviet woman" - self-sacrificing and dedicated to the revolutionary cause – setting the expectation for women to come.

To increase the number of women in the workforce, the state issued the first Family Code in October 1918. This code separated marriage from the church, gave illegitimate children the same rights as legitimate ones, and provided women with the right to a divorce. Moreover, in November 1920, the state legalised abortion in Russia – the first country to do so. In 1922, marital rape was made illegal in the Soviet Union. Labour laws also assisted women, granting them eight-week paid maternity leave, and a minimum wage equal to men. Both sexes were also given paid holiday leave. But the reality was that not all women were granted these rights.

Lenin saw women as a previously untapped labour force and encouraged their participation, stating: "Petty housework crushes, strangles, stultifies and degrades [the woman], chains her to the kitchen and to the nursery, and wastes her labour on barbarously unproductive, petty, nerve-racking, stultifying and crushing drudgery." Women began to enter the Soviet workforce on a scale never seen before. The proportion of women enrolled in secondary school rose to 44.4% by 1927, and the number of women in the workforce grew from 423,200 in 1923 to 885,000 in 1930.

In 1930, the Zhenotdel disbanded as the government claimed its work was completed. By the mid-1930s, there was a return to more traditional and conservative values. Abortion became illegal once again, the legal differences between legitimate and illegitimate children were restored, and divorce once again became difficult to attain. Women were relegated to the home, serving their husbands. This change was accompanied by propaganda images that shifted from showcasing women confidently working in factories and fields, to women joyously cradling infants in their homes.

The Hujum: A Soviet Campaign to Transform Women and Society

The Soviet Union's ambition sought to empower women in neighbouring Muslim republics where traditional practices were seen as hindering progress. The veil became a central target of the Hujum. Soviet officials viewed it as a symbol of female oppression and an obstacle to socialist ideals. The Hujum campaign began on International Women's Day, 1927. 

The Zhenotdel focused its efforts on Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. Propaganda depicted covered women as yearning for liberation, fueling the drive to dismantle practices like polygamy, honor killings, and child marriage. The Soviets believed the Hujum would enforce equality laws, create literacy programs, and empower women to become active political participants. However, Hujum was seen by Central Asian Muslims as a campaign through which outsiders sought to force their cultural values onto them. The veil became a marker of cultural identity, and wearing it became an act of pro-Islamic political defiance as well as a sign of support for ethnic nationalism.

The campaign relied on policy changes and public displays designed for rapid transformation. The Zhenotdel organised mass demonstrations where women symbolically removed their veils while speeches promoted female liberation. By dismantling traditional practices, Soviets aimed to reshape society and pave the way for their ideology to take root. Literacy rates in Uzbekistan increased to 70-75% by the 1950s, and the veil was almost completely phased out, with women taking to wearing large, loose scarves to cover their heads instead.

Soviet Women on the Front Line: From Rejection to Recognition

At first, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, thousands of women who volunteered to fight were turned away. As men were called away to the frontlines, women stepped in to fill crucial roles – many took charge of state and collective farms. By 1942, women made up more than half of the agricultural labour force. However, after sustaining massive losses in Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet Union was forced to reevaluate its stance on women in combat. Ultimately, 800,000 women served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war – roughly 5 percent of total military personnel.

When the Nazis invaded Ukraine, Mariya Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya was evacuated to Siberia. While living there, she learned that her husband had been killed fighting the Nazis near Kyiv two years earlier. Determined to avenge her husband's death, Oktyabrskaya sold her possessions to donate a tank for the war effort and requested that she be allowed to drive it. The State Defense Committee agreed. She was trained to drive and repair a T-34 medium tank, which she named "Fighting Girlfriend." After fighting in battle, she was promoted to the rank of sergeant. In 1944, she.was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union's highest honour for bravery during combat, and the first female tank driver to be given the award. 

After the war, most women left the armed forces. Those that stayed saw old attitudes return and promotion and opportunities more difficult. Some military academies closed their doors to women despite the supposed official policy of equality. While postwar opportunities dwindled for many women, the Soviet Union's image of female potential found new expression in the iconic figure of Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova. On June 16th, 1963, she made history by becoming the first woman to journey into space. A textile-factory assembly-worker chosen from over 400 applicants, Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the Soviet Air Force for the Vostok 6 mission.

Tereshkova's journey was a powerful propaganda tool in the Cold War, seen as a symbol of Soviet progress and gender equality under communism. Her image, widely depicted in posters and art portraying her as a strong and heroic figure, reinforced the idea that the “New Soviet Women” could achieve anything and inspired them to contribute to the nation's goals. However, despite being held up as an exceptional example, Tereshkova's flight remained an isolated event. This very contradiction underscored the limitations faced by most Soviet women, even as the government projected an image of equality to the world.

Soviet women made undeniable contributions to the nation's development, often driven by necessity rather than true equality. Despite legal guarantees, they shouldered a "double shift" - working full-time jobs while managing households - exposing the limits of the Soviet state's claims to gender liberation.