The zhenskie sovety (shortened to zhensovety) were women's councils set up in localities of the Soviet Union after 1958. They were described as "descendants of the Zhenotdel but enjoy less scope and autonomy than did their namesake". [1]
Although formally dissolved following the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the councils were influential in providing support for the Women of Russia political bloc in Russia.
The organisations were part of Khrushchev's leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, and a notable example of an official women's movement in the late Soviet era. The aim of the zhensovety was to promote social services, Marxist–Leninist thinking and political education for working-class women in the USSR, to encourage women to become politically active (or, if they were housewives, more involved in the workforce and increase economic production). [2] [3]
The zhensovety declined under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev, and were revived in under Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of perestroika . Councils existed in most of the Soviet republics, and they were placed under the aegis of the Soviet Women's Committee. [2] According to A. A. Muzyriia and V. V. Kopeiko, there were about 230,000 councils with more than 2.3 million members, and varied greatly in size and scope. [3]
However, they were not welcomed by the emerging feminist movements in the USSR, who saw then as part of the state apparatus, harbouring the nomenklatura (high-ranking officials) and not fully supporting women as the subjects of political change. [2] Genia Brownins describes the zhensovety as a top-down affair before perestroika, and the council leaders tended to be male, and CPSU members. [3] They were, however, freer from control by higher authorities than most Soviet organisations. [1]
Following the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the leader of the SWC (later re-organised as the Women's Union of Russia (WUR)), Alevtina Fedulova, took a more assertive approach and encouraged women's participation in politics (which had declined during the perestroika and glasnost reforms). In October 1993, the electoral bloc Zhenshchiny Rossii (Women of Russia) was formed, gaining support and strength from the zhensovety. [2]
The history of the Soviet Union from 1982 through 1991 spans the period from the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's death until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Due to the years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development, and complex systemic problems in the command economy, Soviet output stagnated. Failed attempts at reform, a standstill economy, and the success of the proxies of the United States against the Soviet Union's forces in the war in Afghanistan led to a general feeling of discontent, especially in the Soviet-occupied Baltic countries and Eastern Europe.
Perestroika was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated with CPSU general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the political and economic systems of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to end the Era of Stagnation.
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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982, and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1960 to 1964 and again from 1977 to 1982. His 18-year term as General Secretary was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration. To this day, the value of Brezhnev's tenure as General Secretary remains debated by historians. While his rule was characterized by political stability and significant foreign policy achievements, it was also marked by corruption, inefficiency, economic stagnation, and rapidly growing technological gaps with the West.
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The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until the country's dissolution in 1991, the officeholder was the recognized leader of the Soviet Union. Officially, the General Secretary solely controlled the Communist Party directly. However, since the party had a monopoly on political power, the General Secretary de facto had executive control of the Soviet government. Because of the office's ability to direct both the foreign and domestic policies of the state and preeminence over the Soviet Communist Party, it was the de facto highest office of the Soviet Union.
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Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny was a Soviet statesman who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the head of state of the Soviet Union, from 1965 to 1977.
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The Khrushchev Thaw is the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were relaxed due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and peaceful coexistence with other nations. The term was coined after Ilya Ehrenburg's 1954 novel The Thaw ("Оттепель"), sensational for its time.
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