Protection of maternity and infancy in Soviet Russia of the 1920s: regional experience

The article, drawing on a wide range of archival documents and various sources, examines the formation of a general system for the protection of mothers and babies in the autonomous Bashkir republic in the 1920s. It examines the measures taken by local authorities to protect and promote the health of children, women-mothers in the difficult conditions of that time. For the first time, the influence of objective and subjective factors on the organization of the institutions of this system, the implementation of the assigned tasks and the implementation of the necessary work in this area is shown. A significant role in this matter was played by women’s activists — employees of the department for work among women organized under the regional committee of the party (zhenotdel). The author, when analyzing the work carried out by them in this direction, pays special attention to the difficulties that arose, omissions, miscalculations, and the reaction of the female population to innovations in this area. The article raises many questions of the topic under study, which in modern conditions are relevant.