Spreading the Bolshevik Message? Soviet Regional Periodicals for Women, 1917-1941

This paper examines Soviet regional periodicals for women from their beginning as special stranichki in newspapers to the end of the 1930s, when they became instruments for publicizing mass campaigns. In the 1920s-when these periodicals were subject to market mechanisms and had to be profitable in order to survive-they presented a vibrant blend of practical advice, fashion, and emancipatory promises. With the advent of the First Five-Year Plan, the contents of women's magazines changed dramatically and came to include an ever greater emphasis on the Party leadership and the latest propaganda campaigns. However, a close examination of the periodicals also reveals that the transmission of information, tropes, language, and images from the centre to the periphery was not always smooth or unidirectional. Local periodicals could initiate campaigns, delay publicizing them, and sometimes virtually ignore them.