ABSTRACT
The status of women in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries has been severely criticized by contemporary radical feminists. In The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Friedrich Engels set forth what later became the basic premises of the orthodox Marxist-Leninist view of women's emancipation. The existing socialist regimes in China, Vietnam, and Cuba reveal many of the same shortcomings of the orthodox Marxist-Leninist approach to women's liberation found in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The historical evidence indicates that Marxism must be refocused to encompass the feminist perspective, and socialist regimes must take the appropriate steps to create the ideological context and material conditions for the genuine emancipation of women and the elimination of gender inequality in all its forms. In contrast to the Cuban case, the Nicaraguan revolution began during the period of the "new feminism," and women played an important role in the revolutionary struggle.
