Soviet Prohibition of abortion in 1936

[Red Future]

This has been on my mind for a while. Why did such an action happen in the Soviet Union? and in addition what do those who believe in Stalinism make of this?

[ComradeOm]

Leaving aside the strong streak of social conservatism that ran through Stalinism - your question could just as easily be about homosexuality or divorce - the immediate context to the ban on abortion was actually demographics and war. Or to be more precise, a desire to maximise the pool of manpower available to the military by increasing the birthrate. Hence the ban on abortion was part of a raft of pro-natal measures - weakening divorce, strengthening family authority, benefits and medals for mothers of large families, etc, etc - designed for this purpose

This was actual in keeping with conservative thought in Western European at the time. The same decade saw similar measures/laws passed in France, Germany and Italy as governments tried to close this 'baby gap' and reinforce the role of women in the home. It was largely a reaction to the First World War and the fear of an impending conflict. Plus, the entire discussion around the topic bore almost no resemblance to that taking place in the US today

[Cheung Mo]

Forced Russification did not harm to the Soviet Union than purges, social conservatism, or anything else that's wrong about Stalin.

The Bolsheviks created huge swathes of loyalty for themselves among the ethnic minorities of the old Russian Empire by working with them to create written languages and to revive and protect languages and cultural practices that had been repressed under Tsarist Russification If Stalin hadn't done, places like Estonia and Georgia would still be deep red.

[Dimentio]

This has been on my mind for a while. Why did such an action happen in the Soviet Union? and in addition what do those who believe in Stalinism make of this?

It was probably made to increase the amount of new worker and soldier ants, which such provisions usually are about in states which themselves are economic entities.

[The Author]

This has been on my mind for a while. Why did such an action happen in the Soviet Union? and in addition what do those who believe in Stalinism make of this?

It was disgusting. But as I look at the Russia of today, with its continual population decline, I could see why they adopted this measure. As Dimentio said in his own unique way, it was to boost the labor force.

[Dimentio]

During the early 20th century, Russia had no problem with population decline. On the contrary, they probably had the highest birth-rates in Europe (which explains how they could with-stand the Nazi onslaught with almost unchanged population numbers). You must remember that Tsarist Russia had birth-rates comparative with Mali or Burkina Faso today.

[ComradeOm]

During the early 20th century, Russia had no problem with population declineBirth-rates did decline slightly after the Revolution. Not seriously - they still remained well above Western norms and were certainly nothing comparable to what Russia is seeing today - but enough to alarm the Soviet leadership. This sort of study of demographics was taken very seriously indeed. Hence the rollback of early Soviet family decrees and the concern expressed when the 1937 census revealed a gap of some eight million between the actual population and the predicted figures

Nor was this about workers. The vast majority of the population growth was driven by the countryside (urban conditions strongly mitigating against starting a family) and peasant labour was the one thing that Russia was not short of