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CHAPTER 2 Family, Divorce, and Comrades’ Courts: Soviet Family and Public Organizations During the Thaw ——————————————————————————————————— Elena Zhidkova Introduction The 1950s and 1960s in the Soviet Union were notable for several social reforms dealing with the education, pension, and welfare systems. Although it witnessed the last Soviet antireligious campaign, Khrushchev’s tenure was called the “Thaw” because of the significant loosening of cultural and social restrictions that took place in these years. It also brought on a debate over a wide range of social problems, from child upbringing to the family crisis (Zubkova, 2008, p. 134). It was a period of liberalization in many senses, and not just politically, since the concept of “private life” was rehabilitated somewhat. On the other hand, it was also a time of decisive struggle for a communist lifestyle. In practice, by adopting the “Moral Code of the Builder of Communism” at the 1961 Party Congress, the Communist Party sanctioned the strengthening of public control of citizens’ actions, both at work and in private. Ordinary people were encouraged to take an active role in public affairs and to volunteer for social and community work. Thus some voluntary organizations like the women’s councils and volunteer people’s patrols made a comeback after almost three decades of inactivity. In my chapter I will use regional archive materials to reconstruct the expectations authorities placed on the activities of various voluntary organizations—women’s councils (zhensovety), volunteer people ’s patrols (druzhinniki), comrades’ courts (tovarishcheskie sudy), trade unions (profsoiuzy), and people’s controllers (narodnye kontrolery)—that emerged in Khrushchev’s time and were involved with family matters. The social history of the Khrushchev era is now beginning to receive more focused attention. British historians have published a series of important publications on Soviet women as a cultural phenomenon (Ilič, 2001, 2004, 2009). Ilič, a leading researcher of Soviet history, has stated that “in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the women’s councils were no longer simply regarded as the facilitators of women’s emancipation; they were now looked upon as the very markers of women’s equality in the Soviet Union” (Ilič, 2009). Gradskova’s book Soviet People with Female Bodies: Performing Beauty and Maternity in Soviet Russia in the Mid 1930–1960s provides new insight into the ways in which Soviet women dealt with the everyday practices of maternity and beauty. It was thought that women would be the main benefactors of the Soviet social reforms. As the author argues, however, many of them found it difficult to adjust to the new conditions (Gradskova, 2007). The voluntary organizations in Russia, as agents of social surveillance and control, have barely been examined. A general overview of the Khrushchev period, with an emphasis on cultural aspects and the history of everyday life, can be found in the works of Lebina (2006), Leibovich (2008), and, in particular, Kozlova (2005), who has consistently focused her research on the role of social policy in the formation of postwar Soviet society. All of these authors, however, are interested in the broader sociocultural context of the era and do not devote specific attention to the theme of social regulation and control. Other sources suggest a different reality and call for a different methodological approach. Based on the research of a team of anthropologists in rural areas of northern Russia, Kushkova’s studies (2006, 2007) have provided useful firsthand accounts not only of women’s lives but also of the social ferment of the 1960s and how it affected female participants. Through a series of qualitative interviews, she examines the testimonies of female activists who participated in the women’s councils. My contribution to the research on voluntary organizations brings a new perspective by focusing on thus-far rarely studied family and gender issues. This chapter examines the theme of social control and the promotion of socially approved behavior in private life. A concurrent topic is the destruction of the traditional social order of the Russian peasantry, ideas about the family, and expectations related to age and gender in agrarian cultures under the influence of urban lifestyles. The notion of public assistance to the family will be examined through the prism of the dramatic realization of what Temkina and Rotkirch have called the “working mother gender contract” (2007, pp. 179–181). This gender contract involved many social actors and revealed a widening gap between everyday practices and official ideology. Although it was the dominant gender contract of the Soviet period , it...

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