Soviet Women, Soviet Industry, and Social Welfare in the 1970s

• In Event: Interdisciplinary History II: The Soviet Union

Abstract

While the study of Soviet women has thrived in recent years, the same cannot be said about analysis of the Soviet industrial milieu. Consequently, scholars have missed a chance to examine women’s growing presence in the Soviet workforce during the late twentieth century. Focusing on female workers in the Russian Republic's chemical industry in a global context, the article demonstrates that Soviet socialism in fact insulated Soviet female workers from the ravages of neoliberal capitalism even as it failed to fulfill the loftiest of its aspirations. Put another way, it shows that at the precise moment that Western nations began to abandon their respective welfare states, the Soviet Union expanded the provision of social services

Author

• James Allen Nealy, New York U