ABSTRACT
Educated on Marxist classics and contemporary Soviet literature, Yugoslav communists announced their own Stalinist gender program in 1940. This chapter explores how Yugoslav communists transferred, negotiated, and tried to implement Stalinist gender policies, and how Soviet ideas challenged gender norms and lived experience of gender in Yugoslav society. Stalinist gender models informed Yugoslav legal transformation, as well as grand modernization projects after World War II. Yugoslav women were politically and socially enfranchised; while many women found jobs in industry that were unimaginable before the War, others engaged in collectivization, hoping for their work to be valued. The chapter also demonstrates that implementation of Soviet models was far from straightforward, as deeply patriarchal attitudes undermined communists’ efforts to change daily discriminatory practices. Many men resisted any challenge to their positions in factories, collective farms, or in their local communities. Nevertheless, Yugoslav communists heavily intervened in gender norms, rendering Soviet gender models relevant long after the Yugoslav-Soviet political split.
