Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia

The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia

Wood, Elizabeth A.

Paperback

Series: Indiana-Michigan Russian and East European Studies

General Gender StudiesGeneral Political ScienceRussian History

ISBN10: 0253214300
ISBN13: 9780253214300
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: Jul 22 2000
Pages: 328
Weight: 1.12
Height: 0.74 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

Meticulously researched, impressively documented, and engrossingly written, . . . [it] contributes to a long-overdue reconception of the New Economic Policy (NEP). . . . --Choice

. . . a well-organized, sophisticated analysis of the difficulties involved in attempting to reconcile ideology with political, economic, and cultural realities.: --The Russian Review

. . . a highly persuasive, revealing, and well-documented account of early Bolshevik policy, practice, and language pertaining to the 'baba problem' and the unexpected ways female and male comrades responded to the party-state's tutelary role toward women. --Slavic Review

This is a rich and densely argued study that embeds the story of the zhenotdel in the context of the political struggles and institutional structures of this formative period of the Russian Revolution. Wood demonstrates clearly the dilemma of whether women party activists should serve the party or their constituents. --American Historical Review

Wood's convincing work is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the gender-role traditionalism the Communists reinstitutionalized with their revolution. --The Women's Review of Books

How could the baba--traditionally, the backward Russian woman--be mobilized as a comrade in the construction of a new state and society? Drawing on recently opened archives, Elizabeth A. Wood explains why the Bolsheviks proved unable and ultimately unwilling to realize their ideological notions of a gender-neutral society. Focusing on the creation and activities of the zhenotdel, a special women's section within the Russian Communist Party, Wood reconstructs the ways in which notions of gender sameness and difference both facilitated and complicated Bolshevik efforts at state building during the Civil War and the New Economic Policy.

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