Before that, there was a general understanding of what marriage and the institution of the family were, but now let us consider what was peculiar to us in Russia. We are always special. Since the beginning of industrialization, a stratum of urban intelligentsia has been formed in our country. A real bourgeois family, like all normal people. An adequate paradigm change is underway, when the family becomes “for the person”, and not a person is just a cog and a worker for the family. When democratic relations are formed. When there is individualism within the marriage union. When there is some family sovereignty. There is its autonomy: everyday, social, cultural. We had it all. And that very beloved by all of us urban intelligentsia of the late 19th - early 20th centuries - it's all about that.
And when so, then it is natural evolution. When new opportunities created by growing industrialization and urbanization go towards improvement and development. From rigid patriarchal domination to a democratic bourgeois family, in which the orientation goes towards consumption and improving well-being. When feelings come to the fore. When individual choice determines further development.
There was a conventional village peasant, but now he has moved to the city. I learned some profession. Has mastered the urban environment. Then he started a relationship here. He married “for love” the one who also got used to it. They had a child. And this entire nuclear construction has become oriented toward education, career, improvement of living conditions, and socialization. Sounds great, right?
But this did not work for us. And the main reason is late, or, more correctly, even belated, and, as a consequence, forced industrialization. No smooth evolution, when generation after generation a class of educated intelligentsia or a bourgeois working class is formed, and they begin to change the social order - this was not the case. The influence of the urban intelligentsia was minimal.
A patriarchal village, of which 80% of the population, poured into our cities, and the dominance sharply became workers and peasants. Who and how we took advantage of this, I hope we know and understand. No evolution - just revolution! The departure from the patriarchal world was radical. “We will destroy the whole world of violence. To the ground and then. We are ours, we will build a new world."
The attitude towards the family in revolutionary Russia was something like this:
"In communist society, along with the final disappearance of private property and oppression of women, both prostitution and the family will disappear." This is Mr. Bukharin pondering. And Leon Trotsky said that "the place of the family, as a closed small enterprise, should be taken by a complete system of public care and services." Such a plant instead of individual family units. Collective.
And all this sounds like an adventurous attempt to give everyone so much freedom and so much "new and bright" that it was so intoxicated that it was possible to kill half of the country for such "higher ideals" Which, unfortunately, happened. The plan worked. But as soon as the revolution and civil war died down and the authorities realized that they had won. As soon as the time has come to rebuild the new statehood, starting from the twenties of the twentieth century, there has been a departure from radical revolutionary sentiments.
Promotional video:
The family and marriage once again make a sharp turn: relations are formed between the family and the new Soviet state. "We are for you - you are for us": such a principle. The Soviet government realized that the young nuclear family needed a lot of things: housing, kindergartens, education, the labor market. So let’s influence the family through these institutions. Then the foundations are laid, when kindergartens, schools, pioneers, work collectives - all together this becomes a factor of control and loss for the family of the possibility of independent decisions. And the principle here is very similar and logical: “We are giving you all this - we have built a kindergarten and a microdistrict - and so, now you are obliged to us for this. Obey. And this principle has taken root so much that we still live under the crust.
A "neo-patriarchal" Soviet family is being formed. Where the patriarch is the state, society, collective. And here, as with the patriarchal church superstructure, economics and demography come to the fore. It was necessary to quickly increase the population of the Soviet Union. And to control the formation of the Soviet man, literally, from conception to effective use as a worker and builder of communism.
And it's worth saying, it worked. Between 1926 and 1989, Russia's population increased by 59 percent. The urban population has grown 6.6 times. And the number of urban families has increased more than 8 times. And this is taking into account the factor of the Great Patriotic War.
How did this happen?
First: the ban on abortion. Everything is clear here. It was necessary to start the reproduction of the population, otherwise the birth rate has already fallen due to the factors of industrialization. Plus the general demographic crisis after the revolution, the civil war, and before that there were still colossal losses during the First World War. Without bans on abortions anywhere.
Second: total limitation of divorce. Give birth - educate. Take responsibility. Heavy. No money. Or there are some individual experiences and aspirations, you want something new - it doesn't matter. "Suffer-fall in love." "God gave a child, and will give for a child." Sorry, the party, not God. In general, a new bright world of communism cannot be built without sacrifices.
Third: a ban on unregistered marriages. This is an important point of control and the formation of a social norm when a man and a woman should initially imply a serious relationship. None of these lived and fled. Immediately marriage and serious intentions. And there, when the partners have already entered into a registered marriage, the second paragraph will begin to work - the prohibition of divorce, and that's it: the trap slammed shut.
Another factor appears: "the moral character of the Soviet family." This is when the first three points are strictly controlled. There must be a child, time. No divorce, two. No frivolous relationship, three. And all the external manifestations of family life should be only positive. And from here at once all Soviet families became neat, highly moral, highly moral.
This, of course, did not mean that there were no drunks, dependents, domestic violence, quarrels, scandals - all this was. But something else was on display. Although, it is worth recognizing that condemnation and condemnation of domestic violence, alcoholism and discrimination within family relationships - all this in some ways even was an effective moment and somewhere held back the growth of these harmful moments. But the problem here is that they beat wives and children, raped and drank themselves completely because of other factors, and not so that there was little "morality" and poorly followed social norms. This surveillance was even too much. And as is always the case with radical distortions, then this colossal public pressure began to become counterproductive.
As a result, it turns out that the Soviet family was equated with society, with the collective. The very bourgeois isolation of the family was severely condemned. Everyone was supposed to be the same, to live under the supervision of each other. Share common concerns and aspirations. Of course, to the light and communist.
And one more important point - art and culture projected only the necessary ideas into society. There were no liberties in the early Soviet and post-war periods. Everything is strictly in accordance with the party line.
But there were also pluses of Soviet family life. One revolutionary trend aimed at destroying patriarchal foundations did work. The woman received total emancipation. For some reason we do not like to emphasize this, but it was here that women have received unconditional suffrage since 1917. Nobody had it so early and so fully.
More access to education. And this is the most important factor. First half of the 1930s: 333 men received secondary or higher education for every 1000 men. For women: per 1000/294 women. In just 30 years, by the first half of the 60s, the corresponding figures are already 1000/911 for men and 1000/947 for women. Almost one hundred percent education for women! This has not happened anywhere else in the world. And education means that a woman could enter the labor market. She had a profession. And by the age of 70-80, the labor market and employment of women were almost equal to that of men. Also an outstanding indicator.
And this is read from the cultural code. Late Soviet culture represents real Soviet society and already knows how to bypass the pressure of the party line. And therefore, many films, books, music, artists are no longer ideology and propaganda, but introspection and a separate message of art about how people live in the USSR.
Therefore, here is "Office Romance" and many other films, as well as women artists, scientists, astronauts, leaders at different levels - all together create a social norm of equality between men and women.
That is, there are problems. And then they were, and now they have survived. But such a discriminatory policy, such prohibitions, restrictions, legalized differences in categories and statuses for men and women - this was not in our society. We are not heirs to a harsh discriminatory gender policy. We have gender aspects in our professional activities. When not all professions were mastered by women. There is an everyday moment when patriarchal steropization of the female role in the household and upbringing was still manifested. But it still manifests itself, and this is a separate conversation, why this is happening, and how to relate to it. The reasons for this are not even gender stereotypes, but the economic situation.
And one of the proofs that the position of women by the late USSR was quite adequate is that it is women who in many ways provoke the demolition of this superstructure “family for the state”. Oddly enough, there is a crisis of progress. Cities are growing. The industry is growing. Life expectancy and quality are increasing. The involvement of women in social processes is becoming widespread. And as a result, the family in the late USSR begins to form a demand for independence and sovereignty.
Women here are at the forefront of change, primarily because the need to give all of themselves to the state and society, but at the same time to the family, and children, and husband, and parents, is projected onto them. The same crisis of "small" and "big", which was in the old patriarchal superstructure.
A woman is provoked to make a choice where to put more effort, and this is already an individual manifestation. This is isolation, not total control, clear rules and guidelines. And women begin to choose: get married later, but for now a career. It is also advisable to choose a husband, and not so that everyone is good, simply because they did not do others in the Soviet Union. In general, in the original USSR with its controlled “neo-patriarchal marriage”, the heroines from “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears” were hard to imagine, but the late Soviet society is a completely different story.
Also, in small steps, elements of the bourgeois sovereign way of life at the level of everyday life are making their way into the Soviet urban environment. Household averaging and typing - this worked in the formative phase. When the agrarian way of life was destroyed and the workers and peasants from the barracks and huts were transported to cities, where even a minimally equipped apartment / communal flat seemed incredible.
But the next generations are already a request for improvement. For individuality. Typical interiors and typical consumption no longer gave the effect of an adequate standard of living. You needed something of your own. Private personal. Families already wanted to be different from their neighbors. We tried to be different in something. Form your own individual way of life. And this greatly destroyed the control of Soviet family politics.
And with the departure from the USSR and the formation of the Russian Federation, everything changed completely. And there was no more tight control. Unregistered marriages appeared en masse. Especially in the context of a repeated long union. Now you can get a divorce. Out of wedlock appeared. And we actually entered this world phase, which is characterized as a crisis of all traditional models and institutions of the family. All general civilization trends began to work for us.
But about all this, about the “era of divorce” in the nineties and why “divorce is normal”, in the next part of the cycle “Traditional marriage is dead! What's next?"
Author: Nikita Podgornov