The Women Who Shook the Revolution

This episode of The Russian Revolution explores the extraordinary but often overlooked role of women in 1917 and beyond. We meet the revolutionaries, soldiers, and activists who fought for change: Alexandra Kollontai, the only woman in Lenin's first government, who championed women's liberation and the Zhenotdel; Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's wife and a key Bolshevik organizer; Maria Spiridonova, the fiery leader of the Left SRs who defied the Bolsheviks; and the women soldiers of the 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death, led by Maria Bochkareva, who fought in the June Offensive. We discuss the Bolsheviks' initially radical stance on women's rights—legalizing abortion and divorce, promoting equality—and how that vision was compromised under Stalin. Drawing on new archival research, we also touch on the peasant women who resisted collectivization and the female snipers of the Soviet era, tracing a line from the revolution's promises to its betrayals. A fresh, necessary perspective on a story we thought we knew.

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