ABSTRACT
Clearly in a one-party state the decisive feminine political participation will be that which takes place within the party. Positions of responsibility and effectiveness in the state bureaucracy, the planned economy and the elective assemblies are all closely controlled by the party. That party has been unable, despite considerable efforts, to recruit women to its membership in any proportion to their presence in the society; and it has been apparently unwilling to promote those recruited into positions in its leadership. On the face of it women’s absence from the USSR political elite may be due to preferences expressed by Soviet women. The nuclear family is the norm in the USSR, and the site of the discrepancy is without doubt the female domestic role. Initiatives which might generate change have not been forthcoming, even if women in the USSR were to begin making radical feminist demands on the system, their current political position leaves them ill-placed to press them.
