WOMEN’S LABOR IN THE INDUSTRY OF THE NATIONAL AUTONOMIES OF THE MIDDLE VOLGA REGION IN THE 1920s – 1930s: MANAGERIAL ASPECT

Abstract

Involving women in social production during the years of industrialization became the core in solving the women’s issue in the Soviet Union. Examining this problem on the materials of three autonomous republics – the Tatar, the Chuvash and the Mari – gave the opportunity to identify common features and features of using women’s labor in the industry of the national region, to show the dynamics of the process and its problems. The main methodology of the study was the institutional and comparative-historical approaches. The process showing formation of institutions that ensured women’s involvement in industrial production in the region is investigated. Women’s participation in industrial production, on the one hand, testified to their achievement of an equal right status in society. On the other hand, women were considered by the state as a human resource when expanding production, as well as an insurance resource in the event of a war. The growth rates of women’s labor in the region were high: by 1937, the proportion of women in the industry of the TASSR was 49.9%, in the MASSR – 43%, in the ChASSR – 31%. In the USSR as a whole, by the mid-1930s, women made 35.8% of industrial workers.