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Chapter 5 - The Turn to Production

Domestic Workers and the First Five-Year Plan

from Part II Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2024

Alissa Klots
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
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Summary

The country’s “turn to production” in the late 1920s rendered “nonproductive” domestic labor irrelevant for socialism. Domestic workers were encouraged to participate in the Five-Year Plan by subscribing to state loans, agitating their friends and family in the countryside for collectivization, or by participating in state campaigns. The focus on activities outside domestic workers’ professional responsibilities signaled that intensification of domestic workers’ labor would not increase production. As the country was heading full speed toward socialism, there was renewed optimism about socialization of housework and disappearance of domestic labor, paid or unpaid. To facilitate the transition process, the labor union developed special programs that aimed to transfer domestic workers into the industries that were suffering from labor shortages. On the one hand, the new policy of mobilization of domestic workers into industry and the service sector created new opportunities for women employed in domestic service. On the other hand, it left housework without formal economic meaning for the socialist project and marginalized those women who remained in service.

Type
Chapter
Information
Domestic Service in the Soviet Union
Women's Emancipation and the Gendered Hierarchy of Labor
, pp. 153 - 179
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • The Turn to Production
  • Alissa Klots, University of Pittsburgh
  • Book: Domestic Service in the Soviet Union
  • Online publication: 25 April 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009467193.012
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  • The Turn to Production
  • Alissa Klots, University of Pittsburgh
  • Book: Domestic Service in the Soviet Union
  • Online publication: 25 April 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009467193.012
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Turn to Production
  • Alissa Klots, University of Pittsburgh
  • Book: Domestic Service in the Soviet Union
  • Online publication: 25 April 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009467193.012
Available formats
×