Between National Tradition and Western Modernization:Soviet Womanand Representations of Socialist Gender Equality as a “Third Way” for Developing Countries, 1956–1964

Abstract

This article analyzesSoviet Woman, the main publication of theKomitet Sovetskikh Zhenshchin(Committee of Soviet Women), during the 1950s and 1960s. Approaching it as a medium of international outreach, the article illustrates how the magazine reflected official Soviet strategies toward developing countries and propagated “peaceful coexistence.” Specifically, it delineates the ways in whichSoviet Womanpresented Soviet women (especially those in the “Soviet East”) as models of female emancipation so as to persuade women in the Third World of the potential of socialism to effect social and economic progress, and to sustain national liberation. Assessing also reception among readers of its messages about advancement, international friendship, and solidarity, it concludes thatSoviet Womanprovided women in decolonizing countries an alternative to a return to traditional modes or a shift to western ones by demonstrating the possibilities that the Soviet system held for realizing gender equality and modernization.