How Did The 1917 October Revolution

The 1917 October Revolution was one of the most important events that occurred to help free the women in Russia. The basic dichotomy of the family structure shifted following The Revolution. Before The Revolution the configuration of the family ruled the role of the women in society, they went to work, took care of the house, and didn’t have the right to be involved in any political decisions and movement. During the progression of The Revolution, the Bolshevik party became more involved with women because it was them who reacted to the movement positively and they had the most drive due to being fed up with the way they were treated. Since some of the Bolsheviks were concerned in the factories, it caused the middle class women’s awareness

When the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks presented their speeches and their ideas among people, no one could decide on a certain side of the groups. Since 34% of Russia’s population was gone, and the idea of Revolution seemed like a far away idea that was never going to to take place to the middle class working people. Women of post revolution were either hard working like Litveiko mentions as her mother being or they were dreamers like Litveiko herself. The women of post revolution seemed to undermine their rights in the society, but when the impact of February revolution by the Bolsheviks promoted a political awareness and excitement among them. Litveiko mentions that the Bolsheviks would say: “The Provisional Government is continuing the war and is not giving land to the peasants…” (52, Litveiko). This caused an awareness for the middle-class because they were fed up with the war and working so hard to not starve. Since the women were working as hard after the fall of Tsar, it was middle-class women that became more involved in political events, such as taking part in strikes and promoting The Revolution of Communism that the Bolsheviks had influenced. This gave women a chance of being

But now since The Revolution has already taken place, there is a common ground that women are standing on and are confident enough to stand behind their own ideas as well, and not only be follower of a group but be a group themselves. Women have now changed The Revolutionary society, meaning that since gender roles are more socially acceptable they can awaken others on ideas such as prostitution. Kollontai’s writing about prostitution is extremely important to the people post revolution because now they are social issues that can be openly talked about and that also are involved with the matter of economy. She mentions, “Prostitution is above all a social phenomenon; it is closely connected to the needy position of women and her economic dependence on man in marriage and the family. The roots of prostitution are in economics” (264, Kollontai). This is causing awareness to Russian society and the non-Communist groups that the issues of prostitution all relates back to pre-revolution. Due to not having a same status in the marriage and same wages in work settings women were obligated to become prostitutes in order to save their families or earn a wage for living. Her view is that we shouldn’t be going against prostitutes because they are women, but for the right reasons of health being