Women’s education, entry to paid work, and forced unveiling in Soviet Central Asia

This chapter explores the implications of Bolshevik (1920s) and Soviet (1930s) ideas on gender equality in the territory of Central Asia that had been colonized by the Russian Empire in the 19th century. It places the study of Bolshevik politics at the intersection of national and gender politics. The Soviet scenario for what they called the emancipation of “women of the East” showed itself to be contradictory and marked by imperial and orientalist thinking about “Other” women as more backward than women from the Russian center and unable to find their own way to freedom. Bolshevik propaganda on the “backward woman of the East” resulted in promoting the dependent position of non-Russian women and elevating the status of Russian women and Russia itself. However, women of different national backgrounds who participated in early Bolshevik emancipation campaigns became victims of Stalin’s Great Terror of the late 1930s. The Central Asian women’s experience demonstrates the importance of examining Soviet gender ideology as it shaped and was shaped by ethnicity.