Overview[]
The view of the Soviet family as the basic social unit in society evolved from revolutionary to conservative; the government of the Soviet union first attempted to weaken the family and then to strengthen it. According to the 1968 law "Principles of Legislation on Marriage and the Family of the USSR and the Union Republics", parents are "to raise their children in the spirit of the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism, to attend to their physical development and their instruction in and preparation for socially useful activity."
Evolution of the Soviet family[]
The early Soviet state sought to remake the family, believing that although the economic emancipation of workers would deprive families of their economic function, it would not destroy them but rather base them exclusively on mutual affection. Religious marriage was replaced by civil marriage, divorce became easy to obtain, and unwed mothers received special protection. All children, whether legitimate or illegitimate, were given equal rights before the law, women were granted sexual equality under matrimonial law, inheritance of property was abolished, and abortion was legalized.
In the early 1920s, however, the weakening of family ties, combined with the devastation and dislocation caused by the Civil war (1918–21), produced a wave of nearly 7 million homeless children. This situation prompted senior party officials to conclude that a more stable family life was required to rebuild the country's economy and shattered social structure. By 1922 the government allowed some forms of inheritance, and after 1926 full inheritance rights were restored. By the late 1920s, adults had been made more responsible for the care of their children, and common-law marriage had been given equal legal status with civil marriage.
During Joseph Stalin's rule, the trend toward strengthening the family continued. In 1936 the government began to award payments to women with large families, banned abortions, and made divorces more difficult to obtain. In 1942 it subjected single persons and childless married persons to additional taxes. In 1944 only registered marriages were recognized to be legal, and divorce became subject to the court's discretion. In the same year, the government began to award medals to women who gave birth to five or more children and took upon itself the support of illegitimate children.
After Stalin's death in 1953, the government rescinded some of its more restrictive social legislation. In 1955 it declared abortions for medical reasons legal, and in 1968 it declared all abortions legal. The state also liberalized divorce procedures in the mid-1960s but in 1968 introduced new limitations.
In 1974 the government began to subsidize poorer families whose average per capita income did not exceed 50 rubles per month (later raised to 75 rubles per month in some northern and eastern regions). The subsidy amounted to 12 rubles per month for each child below eight years of age. It was estimated that in 1974 about 3.5 million families (14 million people, or about 5% of the entire population) received this subsidy. With the increase in per capita income, however, the number of children requiring such assistance decreased. In 1985 the government raised the age limit for assistance to twelve years and under. In 1981 the subsidy to an unwed mother with a child increased to 20 rubles per month; in early 1987 an estimated 1.5 million unwed mothers were receiving such assistance, or twice as many as during the late 1970s.
Family size[]
Family size and composition depended mainly on the place of residence—urban or rural—and ethnic group. The size and composition of such families was also influenced by housing and income limitations, pensions, and female employment outside the home. The typical urban family consisted of a married couple, two children, and, in about 20% of the cases, one of the grandmothers, whose assistance in raising the children and in housekeeping was important in the large majority of families having two wage earners. Rural families generally had more children than urban families and often supported three generations under one roof. Families in Central Asia and the Caucasus tended to have more children than families elsewhere in the Soviet Union and included grandparents in the family structure. In general, the average family size followed that of other industrialized countries, with higher income families having both fewer children and a lower rate of infant mortality. From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, the number of families with more than one child decreased by about 50% and in 1988 totaled 1.9 million. About 75% of the families with more than one child lived in the southern regions of the country, half of them in Central Asia. In the Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Moldovian, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian republics, families with one and two children constituted more than 90% of all families, whereas in Central Asia those with three or more children ranged from 14% in the Kyrgyz republic to 31% in the Tajik. Surveys suggested that most parents would have had more children if they had had more living space.<
Beginning in the mid-1980s, the government promoted family planning in order to slow the growth of the Central Asian indigenous populations. Local opposition to this policy surfaced especially in the Uzbek and Tajik republics. In general, however, the government continued publicly to honor mothers of large families. Women received the Motherhood Medal, Second Class, for their fifth live birth and the Mother heroine medal for their tenth. Most of these awards went to women in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
family and kinship structure[]
The extended family was more prevalent in Central Asia and the Caucasus than in the other sections of the country and, generally, in rural areas more than in urban areas. Deference to parental wishes regarding marriage was particularly strong in these areas, even among the Russians residing there.
Extended families helped perpetuate traditional life-styles. The patriarchal values that accompany this life-style affected such issues as contraception, the distribution of family power, and the roles of individuals in marriage and the family. For example, traditional Uzbeks placed a higher value on their responsibilities as parents than on their own happiness as spouses and individuals. The younger and better educated Uzbeks and working women, however, were more likely to behave and think like their counterparts in the European areas of the Soviet Union, who tended to emphasize individual careers.
Extended families were not prevalent in the cities. Couples lived with parents during the first years of marriage only because of economics or the housing shortage. When children were born, the couple usually acquired a separate apartment.
Function of family []
The extended family was more prevalent in Central Asia and the Caucasus than in the other sections of the country and, generally, in rural areas more than in urban areas. Deference to parental wishes regarding marriage was particularly strong in these areas, even among the Russians residing there.
Extended families helped perpetuate traditional life-styles. The patriarchal values that accompany this life-style affected such issues as contraception, the distribution of family power, and the roles of individuals in marriage and the family. For example, traditional Uzbeks placed a higher value on their responsibilities as parents than on their own happiness as spouses and individuals. The younger and better educated Uzbeks and working women, however, were more likely to behave and think like their counterparts in the European areas of the Soviet Union, who tended to emphasize individual careers.
Extended families were not prevalent in the cities. Couples lived with parents during the first years of marriage only because of economics or the housing shortage. When children were born, the couple usually acquired a separate apartment.
Also see[]
| Communist world! (1922-1991) | |
|---|---|
| The Warsaw Pact and the military | Warsaw Pact - People's Republic of Albania (left) - German Democratic Republic- Czech Socialist Republic- Warsaw Pact Rail - USSR -People's Republic of Poland - Hungarian People's Republic - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - People's Republic of Bulgaria - Polish People's Republic - Romanian Popular Republic - Romanian People's Republic - Soviet 5.45x39mm - Soviet Southern Group of Forces -Seven days to the River Rhine (1979) - Jüterbog Airfield -Topoľčany Army Barracks and bunker system - Brezhnev Doctrine - Soviet war in Afghanistan - Vladivostok Navel base - Murmansk Navel base - Archangelsk Navel base - Kaliningrad Navel base - Sevastopol Navel base - Kazan Higher Tank Command School and related tank factory - Burevestnik Airport - People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (de facto, but not de jure) - AK-47\Kalashnikov assault rifle - Red Army - Kartsev-Venediktov Design Bureau (OKB-520) - KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs) - Eastern bloc - Tupolev Tu-160- 9M14 Malyutka - RPG-7 - R-7 ICBM - Tupolev Tu-95 |
| The Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (ComEcom) nations |
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance - SovRoms - Mongolian People's Republic - Cuba - Vietnam - North Vietnam - German Democratic Republic- Czech Socialist Republic- USSR -People's Republic of Poland - Hungarian People's Republic - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - People's Republic of Bulgaria - Polish People's Republic - People's Republic of Albania (left) - Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (never fully joined) - Romanian Popular Republic -Romanian People's Republic - North Korea (de facto, but not de jure to avoid worrying the PRC) - Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (wanted to join, but never got round to doing so) - People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (de facto, but not de jure) - Eastern bloc |
| The ones with nukes | USSR - Cuba (gave them up) - Cuban Missile Crisis - Tupolev Tu-160 - R-7 ICBM - Tupolev Tu-95 |
| The Sino-Soviet Split | Sino-Soviet Split - USSR - Zhou Enlai - Nikita Khrushchev - Mao Zedong - People's Republic of China People's Republic of Albania |
| The end of it | Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 - Fall of the Berlin wall - Soviet "Era of Stagnation" - Dissolution of the Soviet Union - Singing Revolution - Baltic Republics of the Soviet Union- The political dissolution of the Soviet Union and why it broke up afterwards - Soviet war in Afghanistan - Chernobyl disaster -Glasnost - Perestroika |
| Economics | Sakhalin Island - Life under communism - Food cards- Collective farms- Yugoslavian Agricoles - Political Committee of the Communist Party of China - Soviet political organs - Soviet Social Apparatus - The purveyors of crappy Cold War era Easter Block cars - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Virgin Lands campaign - Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs) - The Agrokomerc Affair - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc - Kartsev-Venediktov Design Bureau (OKB-520) - KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory- Eastern bloc |
| Politics and Geo-politics | Sakhalin Island - Stalin Monument (Budapest) - Communist Party of the Soviet Union - Khrushchev Thaw- Tito–Stalin Split- Life under communism - Hungarian Revolution of 1956 - Cold War - Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia - Soviet "Era of Stagnation" - Soviet 'oligophrenics' and 'oligophrenia' - Soviet political organs - Soviet Social Apparatus - Russian and Soviet Leaders between 1917 and 2018 - Stalin's purges and ethnic cleansing- Closed Soviet locations - Gulags - Berlin Wall - Détente - Sino-Soviet Split - Brezhnev Doctrine - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation -Glasnost - Perestroika - Kuril Islands - Rybachy Peninsula - Kaliningrad Oblast - Eastern bloc - The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union |
| Technology and outer space | Sputnik 1 - Soviet Space Program - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Virgin Lands campaign - Tatra trams#T3 and T3R.P trams - M62 locomotive - TEP80 locomotive -Soviet MSI nMOS chip - Soviet Ice Breaker Lenin - Chernobyl disaster - AK-47\Kalashnikov assault rifle -Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs)- The Space Race - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Yuri Gagarin - Vostok rocket-Soyuz rocket - Baikonur Cosmodrome - Plesetsk Cosmodrome - Zenit 2 - Tupolev Tu-160 - R-7 ICBM |
| People | Stalin Monument (Budapest) - Vladimir Lenin - Leonid Brezhnev - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Yuri Gagarin - Nikita Khrushchev - Joseph Stalin - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation - Mikhail Gorbachev - Ho Chi Minh - Fidel Castro - Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej - Mohammad Najibullah - Maurice Bishop - Zhou Enlai - Salvador Allende - Dr. Kwame Nkrumah |
| Important places | Sakhalin island - Moscow - Nakhodka Port - Vladivostok Navel base - Murmansk Navel base - Arkangelsk Navel base - Kalinningrad Navel base - Sevastopol Navel base - Kazan Higher Tank Command School and related tank factory -Burevestnik Airport- Jüterbog Airfield - Topoľčany Army Barracks and bunker system - Kuril Islands - Berlin Wall - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Rybachy Peninsula - St. Petersburg - Closed Soviet locations - Kaliningrad Oblast - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc -KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc - Baikonur Cosmodrome - Plesetsk Cosmodrome |
| Systems of state repression | What is a police state? - Státní bezpečnost/Štátna bezpečnosť (StB/ŠtB) - Committee for State Security (KGB) - Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye (GRU) - Stasi - Securitate -Gulag - Political disappearances - Berlin Wall - A Bulgarian umbrella assassination – Komitet za dǎržavna sigurnost (CSS) - Censorship East Germany - Communist Party of the Soviet Union - The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union |
| The political heretics who were
not really true communists |
People's Republic of Albania - Mao Zedong - Enver Hoxha - Pol Pot - Nicolae Ceauşescu - Democratic Kampuchea - Khmer Rouge - The PRC - Communist Party of Kampuchea - The Shining Path - North Korea - Red Brigades (in Italy) - Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) - Daniel Ortega - Kim Il-Sung - People's Republic of China |
| The founding nations | Russian SFSR - Ukrainian SSR - Byelorussian SSR - Transcaucasian SFSR - Bukharan People's Soviet Republic - Khorezm People's Soviet Republic - Tashkent Soviet -Communist Party of the Soviet Union - The Bolshevik Party |
| Bolshevik\Soviet annexations | Estonia (annexed) - Latvia (annexed) - Lithuania (annexed) - Kaliningrad Oblast (annexed) - Finnish Civil War (the Reds lost) - Mongolian People's Republic (annexation failed) - The Far Eastern Republic (annexed) - Far Eastern Republic (annexed) - Tuvan People's Republic (annexed) - Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (annexed) - State of Buryat-Mongolia (annexed) - Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (annexed) - Kronstadt Republic (crushed) - Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus (SSRB) (crushed)- The Belarusian People's Republic (BNR) (crushed) |
| Other former European, Central Asian
and Iranian puppet or client states |
Litbell - Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR) - Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic - Soviet Republic of Naissaar - Latvian SSR of 1919-1920 - The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) - Bolshavik Russia - Lemko-Rusyn People's Republic- West Ukrainian People's Republic - Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic - Hungarian Soviet Republic - People's State of Bavaria - Bavarian Soviet Republic - The Soviet Republic of Odessa - Kiev called the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) - Petrograd Soviet - East Turkestan Republic (ETR) - Persian Socialist Soviet Republic - Soviet Republic of Gilan - Azerbaijan People's Government - Republic of Mahabad (1946) - Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic |
| Other stuff | Life under communism - Sputnik 1- Khrushchyovka - When is not a Yugo to a Yugo? - Soviet Space Program - The purveyors of crappy Cold War era Easter Block cars- Vietnam War - 1950–1953 Korean War - Family in the Soviet Union - Radio Moscow - Tatra trams#T3 and T3R.P trams - M62 locomotive - TEP80 locomotive - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation - Soviet medals - Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros - The Agrokomerc Affair - Peruvian conflict - Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement - Cambodian genocide - The Jewish Holocaust and Roma Porajmos in the Baltic states - Italian Communist Party -"Reds under the bed" - The Holodomor - Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Peruvian conflict - 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution - Sandinistas - Guerrilla Army of the Poor - Viet Cong - Pathet Lao - Soviet 'oligophrenics' and 'oligophrenia' - New Jewel Movement - The 'false' Cold War theory - All the Communist countries during the Cold War - People's Liberation Army (of China) - People's Republic of China |