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Women are strangely silent in the drama of change. When Gorbachev first came to power he tried to activate the women’s groups by establishing national councils of women in the major republics. The councils have limited themselves to the ceremonial functions of the standard communist women’s organizations that have been with us since they were first formed at the end of the Second World War. These organizations do not even attempt to hark back to the women’s sections of the Communist Party organizations that in the 1920s helped revolution ize the whole territory. The peaceful revolution of 1989 picks up where previous revolutions in the area left off — it seeks to institute democratic legality for all and it seeks to limit the centralized strangle-hold of the Moscow-centered Party by providing the national republics with real self- government, genuine local control, and economic de centralization. Russian women had tried to organize a feminist party in 1905 hoping to participate in the democratic restructuring of the Russian Empire. The feminists thought that the Russian liberals would be their natural allies. The liberals, in a move familiar to American read ers, felt that stress on women’s rights would dissipate the political struggle. Liberal forces in turn proved to be weaker than the liberals expected. Come 1918 — exeunt liberals. Historically the liberals in Russia overlooked not only the women, they overlooked the non-Russian nationalities in the multi-national Russian Empire. Just as they felt that any attention to women’s rights dissi pated liberal forces, so they maintained that there was no need to turn their attention to securing the rights of the non-Russian nationalities. Their attention was turned to the Russian middle class male who they thought understood the need for political reform and for preserv ing order. But that type of a person did not constitute the majority of the population of the whole Russian Empire, as the liberals painfully learned. By establishing the Union of Socialist Soviet Repub lics Lenin preserved the integrity of the Russian Empire. The cost proved to be the freedom and well-being of both Russians and non-Russians alike. The latter, more over, were subjected to brutal policies of Russification, which prevented the establishment of a common demo cratic front against the repeated waves of totalitarian ism. Since the Russian republic was the privileged one, leaders of the other republics tried to curry favor with the leadership by being as Russian as they could. For the women the fallout of Soviet totalitarianism has been a deep distrust of feminism. How can that be? The Communist Party has always supported its version of women’s emancipation. All social democrats have historically fought for the rights of workers and the rights of women. Many were genuine in their convic tions. But as many reformers, they felt that their convic tions gave them both the right and the knowledge to speak on behalf of the workers and of the women. Their solution of the "women’s question” was economic equa lity and the equality of opportunity for women as well as for men. The middle-class men defined women’s equal ity, just as they defined workers’ rights. In effect, for women in the USSR it meant a double burden: work outside the home to earn the salary necessary to keep the family alive, and work in the home in a society in which consumer goods were scarce, the economy sub ject to centralized planning that did not take any women’s or family needs into consideration, and a paternalistic society that did not consider the needs of women. Clara Zetkin’s March 8 Day of Women celebration became one more meaningless political hoopla for the over worked Soviet woman. As far as the rank and file of Soviet women are concerned, it was the feminists insistence on equality of women that was responsible for the double burden of work heaped upon them. Hence, the unwillingness of Soviet women to breathe life into party-created councils of women. The current transformation of the USSR is occuring on various levels — the overall success of restructuring depends on the success of all levels of reform. If the central government again overlooks the just demands of the nationalities, it will pay for its oversight by the need to establish centralized control that will compromise Russian democratic forces. In short, Russian democracy is too weak to function on its own. It needs to ally itself with the democratic forces in the other non-Russian republics. The Russians and the Ukrainians, through their parliamentary representatives, have already drafted preliminary agreements that point the way to construc tive cooperation. This spring and this summer I had a chance to wit ness the attempts of the Ukrainian women to revitalize the women’s movement and to coordinate the work of a number of the recently established women’s groups. It is slow going, but the prognosis is auspicious. Unlike Russians, Ukrainians have not really had an independ ent government to turn to. Rather whenever possible informal community mechanisms attempted to care for the needy and to provide some means of self-deve- lopment. Not having a government or a strong diaspora, the Ukrainians have historically relied upon community organizations to structure their lives, provide support and educational opportunities. In the spring in Ukraine, and then again at the end of the summer when I took part in a large conference of scholars on all aspects of Ukrainian topics I met different women, women who make a difference, women who know they can make a difference when women work with women. The steps are hesitant, but they are being made. (to be continued) Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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