Marriage

In keeping with their Marxist rejection of marriage as a bourgeois institution, Lenin's Bolsheviks had made divorce easier and had attempted to liberate women from the bondage of children and family. However, after only a brief period of experiment, Lenin's government had come to question its earlier enthusiasm for sweeping change in this area. Stalin shared their doubts. Indeed, he was convinced the earlier Bolshevik social experiment had failed. By the end of the 1930s, the Soviet divorce rate was the highest in Europe - one divorce for every two marriages. This led him to embark on what has been called 'the great retreat'. Stalin began to stress the value of the family as a stabilizing influence in society. He let it be known that he did not approve of the sexual freedoms that had followed the 1917 Revolution. He argued that a good communist was a socially responsible one: 'a poor husband and father, a poor wife and mother, cannot be good citizens'.

Stalin, aware of the social upheavals collectivization and industrialization were causing, was trying to create some form of balance by emphasizing the traditional social values attaching to the role of women as home-makers and child-raisers. He was also greatly exercised by the number of orphaned children living on the streets of the urban areas. Left to fend for themselves, the children had formed themselves into feral gangs of scavengers and violent thieves. Disorder of this kind further convinced Stalin of the need to re-establish family structures.