ABSTRACT
BEGINNING IN OCTOBER OF 1917, liberty and equality for women were among the principal objectives of the program of societal improvements envisioned for Socialist Russia. These same aims were unhesitatingly adopted by all the countries of Eastern Europe, which in the aftermath of World War II became the Socialist bloc. Today, the most radical detractors of the Soviet Socialist system view the phenomenon of “women's emancipation” in these countries as a “complete myth.” Although this judgment is to a great extent justified, it does not reflect the whole truth. But there is even less truth in the countless scientific and literary descriptions of Socialism's real-life successes in bringing about equality between men and women—descriptions that were massively published until the early 1990s and whose only outstanding feature was their use of “Newspeak,” the mark of their participation in the official ideology. The true situation of women in Eastern Europe was more complex and more contradictory than either past or present ideological schemas would lead us to believe. Women's circumstances differed from country to country and from society to society. Nevertheless, within the general picture one can discern certain essential, common traits, which were conditioned by the manner in which the goals and means of women's emancipation were initially formulated.
