Family in the Soviet Union

The view of the Soviet family as the basic social unit in society evolved from revolutionary to conservative; the government of the Soviet Union first attempted to weaken the family and then to strengthen it from the 1930s onwards. According to the 1968 law "Principles of Legislation on Marriage and the Family of the USSR and the Union Republics", parents are "to raise their children in the spirit of the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism, to attend to their physical development and their instruction in and preparation for socially useful activity".

Prior to the 1917 revolution, women did not have equal rights to men and, since most of the population were peasants, they lived under the patriarchal village structure; they had to take care of the home as well as playing an important role in looking after farms. Millions of peasant men did seasonal work in the cities, often leaving women without their husbands for months at a time. One of the main aims of the Lenin period was to abolish the bourgeois family, and free both men and women from the drudgery of housework. Communal canteens, laundry services and nurseries were set up, and women could now legally get an education and work. The Bolshevik government did not trust the nuclear family, believing it taught individualist, bourgeois values to children; they initially believed that government institutions could raise the millions of children orphaned by the Russian Civil War, and that these children could be inculcated with socialist values. The Civil War had left a void in the industrial sectors of the workforce, and that void was filled with hundreds of thousands of women. When Stalin came to power and instituted the first five year plan, women's labour became an essential economic resource that allowed a massive expansion of the workforce at a low cost, as women often were not paid as much, in part due to inexperience. They also offered opportunities for women inside of the party when the Department for Work Among Women was created in 1919. The Bolsheviks advocated for the abolition of differentiated gender roles. Despite this strong push for change by the Zhenotdel, the immensely patriarchal society that had existed for hundreds of years prior, would supersede these efforts.

Marxist theory on family established the revolutionary ideal for the Soviet state and influenced state policy concerning family in varying degrees throughout the history of the country. The principals are: The nuclear family unit is an economic arrangement structured to maintain the ideological functions of Capitalism. The family unit perpetuates class inequality through the transfer of private property through inheritance. Following the abolition of private property, the bourgeois family will cease to exist and the union of individuals will become a “purely private affair”. The Soviet state's first code on marriage and family was written in 1918 and enacted a series of transformative laws designed to bring the Soviet family closer in line with Marxist theory.

One year after the Bolsheviks took power, they ratified the 1918 Code on Marriage, the Family and Guardianship. The revolutionary jurists, led by Alexander Goikhbarg, adhered to the revolutionary principals of Marx, Engels, and Lenin when drafting the codes. Goikhbarg considered the nuclear family unit to be a necessary but transitive social arrangement that would quickly be phased out by the growing communal resources of the state and would eventually “wither away”. The jurists intended for the code to provide a temporary legal framework to maintain protections for women and children until a system of total communal support could be established.

The 1918 code accomplished many of the goals that the jurists had sought to set into motion, but the social disruption left in the wake of World War I exposed the inadequacies of the code to alleviate social problems. The 1926 code would revive a more conservative definition of the family in a legal sense. “The 1918 code had been motivated by a desire to lead society forward to new social relationships in line with socialist thought on marriage and family, the 1926 code attempted to solve immediate problems, in particular to ensure the financial well being”. Government agencies simply did not have the resources to care for the children. An adopted child could be cared for by a family at virtually no cost to the state. The 1926 code would reinstate adoption as a solution for child homelessness. In 1921 New Economic Policy (NEP), brought about a limited restoration of private enterprise and free markets. It also brought an end to labor conscription. The result was a spike in female unemployment as “War Communism” came to an end and NEP emerged. Hundreds of thousands of unemployed women did not have registered marriages and were left with no means of support or protections following a divorce under the 1918 code. The 1926 code would make unregistered marriages legal in order to safeguard women by extending alimony to unregistered, de facto wives, the purpose being that more women would be cared for in times of widespread unemployment. Under the 1918 code, there was no division of property in the event of a divorce. Marriage was not to be an economic partnership and each party was entitled to individual property. This meant that women who ran the household and cared for the children would not be entitled to any material share of what the “provider” had brought to the marriage. In another conservative move, the 1926 code would require an equal division of property acquired during a marriage. All property acquired during the course of a marriage would become “common”. Additionally the code would do away with the 1918 concept of “collective paternity” where multiple men could be assigned to pay alimony if the father of a child could not be determined. According to the 1926 code, paternity could be assigned by a judge. It also enlarged family obligations by expanding alimony obligations to include children, parents, siblings and grandparents. Alimony would also have set time limits. Coinciding with the rise of Stalinism, the law demanded the stabilizing and strengthening of the family. “The “withering away” doctrine, once central to socialist understand of the family, law, and the state, was anathematized.”

The edict also sought to preserve the family unit by making divorces even more difficult to obtain. Fines were increased and the parties were often ordered to attempt reconciliation. Divorce also became a public matter. Divorcees were required to appear in public court and their intent was published in the local newspaper.

The early Soviet state sought to remake the family, believing that although the economic emancipation of workers would deprive families of their economic function, it would not destroy the institution but rather base family relations exclusively on mutual affection. The Bolsheviks replaced religious marriage with civil marriage, divorce became easy to obtain, and unwed mothers received special protection. All children, whether legitimate or illegitimate, had equal rights before the law, women gained sexual equality under matrimonial law, inheritance of property was abolished, and abortion was legalized. In the early 1920s, however, the weakening of family ties, combined with the devastation and dislocation caused by the Russian Civil War (1918–21), resulted in nearly 7 million homeless children. This situation prompted senior Bolshevik Party officials to conclude that the State needed a more stable family life to rebuild the country's economy and shattered social structure. By 1922 the government allowed some forms of inheritance, and after 1926 full inheritance rights were restored. By the late 1920s, adults had been made more responsible for the care of their children, and common law marriage had been given equal legal status with civil marriage. After the revolution, famine and poor economic conditions led to an increase in the number of “back alley” abortions, and after pressure from doctors and jurists, the Commissariats of Health and Justice legalized abortion in 1920. Abortions were free for all women, although they were seen as a necessary evil due to economic hardship rather than a woman's right to control her own reproductive system. Through the 1930s, a rising number of abortions coupled with a falling birthrate alarmed Soviet officials, with a recorded 400,000 abortions taking place in 1926 alone. Farming was one of the main efforts for food production, and was at the center of development in support of Soviet communism. When crops failed or suffered from low yields, Soviet peasants suffered greatly from malnutrition. The traditional types of food found in the Soviet Union were made up of various grains for breads and pastries, dairy products such as cheese and yogurt, and various meats such as pork, fish, beef and chicken. By 1940, certain products, such as vegetables, meat and grains, were less abundant than other forms of food due to the strain on resources and poor crop yields. Bread and potatoes were very important staples for Soviet families, both in cities and in the countryside. Potatoes were easily grown and harvested in many different environments, and were usually reliable as a food source. Malnutrition was a prominent factor in poor health conditions and individual growth during this period in the Soviet Union. Much like the Western tradition of three main meals a day, the Soviet meals consisted of breakfast (zavtrak), lunch (obed), and dinner (uzhin). Soups and broths made of meats and vegetables when available, were common meals for the Soviet peasant family.