Open AccessFrom Krestianka to Udarnitsa: Rural Women and the Vydvizhenie Campaign, 1933-1941
Author(s) -
Matt F. Oja
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
the carl beck papers in russian and east european studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2163-839X
pISSN - 0889-275X
DOI - 10.5195/cbp.1996.67
Subject(s) - peasant , communism , economic shortage , rural area , political science , plan (archaeology) , economic growth , business , law , economics , government (linguistics) , geography , politics , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology
From the end of the first five-year plan onward, the Soviet Communist Party faced a chronic failure of its program for transforming the Soviet countryside from a cultural and economic backwater to an advanced, industrial society. The Party tried to cope with runaway labor turnover and consequent cadre shortages in one important way by attempting to mobilize a huge potential labor pool that had remained almost completely unexposed to modem technology: peasant women. In 1933, Stalin personally initiated a comprehensive campaign to tap this potential by actively requiring that peasant women be trained to operate heavy farm machinery, and that the most capable women be promoted to higher positions such as brigade leader, kolkho chairman, and rural Party positions.