n October, nine months after February, the workers had taken power. The Bolsheviks had consciously fought for equality between men and women, a demand they could now put into practice. The new Soviet regime began the struggle to build a society free of oppression and inequality.
The Bolsheviks immediately abolished all laws that put women at a disadvantage in relation to men. All restrictions on women's freedom of movement was removed. Before the revolution a wife was legally bound to remain with her husband and follow him if he moved. Far-reaching changes in property relations weakened the family as an economic unit, as well as the father's dominant position within the family. Other laws gave women equal rights to own land and function as head of the household.
Free access to abortion was introduced as a right for all women. Church and State were separated, marriage, registration of children, etc. were taken out of the control of the Church. Marriage now took place through a simple registration process based on mutual consent. Each partner could take the other's name or keep their own. By 1926 marriage didn’t even have to be registered and divorce was made as easy as possible and could be achieved if one person demanded it, even without the other partner’s consent. The concept of illegitimate children was abolished so that all children were to be treated equally, whether they were born in or out of marriage. Paid maternity leave before and after birth was introduced and night work for pregnant women and women who had just given birth was prohibited. In addition, special maternity wards were set up.
This was extremely progressive for its time. In no capitalist country were women legally equal to men. In 1917, Denmark and Norway were the only European countries where women had the vote. In England women won the right to vote in 1918, in the United States in 1920, Sweden in 1921 and in France and Italy, women had to wait another 30 years.
In Denmark school children are told that the first female minister in the world was the Social Democrat Nina Bang. The truth is that she only became minister in 1924 - seven years after Aleksandra Kollontai was appointed People's Commissar of Social Welfare in the first Bolshevik "government" after the revolution. Kollontai was thus the world's first female minister. Only in 1973, more than 50 years after it was legalised in the Soviet Union, was abortion made legal in Denmark, the same year it was also introduced in the United States.
Equality in law in Russia did not only apply to women but also to oppressed groups in general. Under the Tsar homosexuality was prohibited and for those who did not fit into the norms of gender and sexuality, there was a risk of ending up in a labour camp. All these discriminatory laws were first abolished by the new Soviet regime in 1922. Prior to that, in 1918 a decree was issued stopping the application of pre-revolutionary Tsarist laws. In the new 1922 Criminal Code homosexuality was decriminalised.
Georgy Chicherin, who was openly gay, was People's Commissar for foreign affairs from 1918 to 1930. During the Brest-Litovsk negotiations with Germany, he served as Trotsky's deputy. In this capacity, ironically, he was responsible for negotiating the Catholic Church's status in Russia after the revolution with Eugenio Pacelli, who later was to become became Pope Pius XII.
The Bolshevik Grigorii Batkis, Director of the Institute for Social Hygiene, described the position in the following way: "The present sexual legislation in the Soviet Union is the work of the October revolution. This revolution is important not only as a political phenomenon which secures the political role of the working class, but also for the revolutions which evolving from it reach out into all areas of life... [Soviet legislation] declares the absolute non-involvement of state and society in sexual relations, provided they harm no one and infringe upon no one's interests... Homosexuality, sodomy and various other forms of sexual gratification set forth in European legislation as offences against public morality are treated by Soviet legislation exactly as is so called 'natural' intercourse." [Available in German, Die Sexualrevolution in Russland, Berlin: Fritz Kater, 1925, The Sexual Revolution in Russia - Grigorii Batkis].
This is an extremely advanced approach to this kind of question, especially considering the centuries of extreme backwardness that still weighed on Soviet society in that period. It shows what is possible once class society has been overthrown. The Soviet Union would undoubtedly have seen a flourishing of human possibilities, far beyond anything so far dreamt, had the disaster of isolation and Stalinism not intervened.
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