Overview

This innovative study is the first to explore the evolution of domestic service in the Soviet Union, set against the background of changing discourses on women, labour, and socialist living. Even though domestic service conflicted with the Bolsheviks' egalitarian message, the regime embraced paid domestic labor as a temporary solution to the problem of housework. Analyzing sources ranging from court cases to oral interviews, Alissa Klots demonstrates how the regime both facilitated and thwarted domestic workers' efforts to reinvent themselves as equal members of Soviet society. Here, a desire to make maids and nannies equal participants in the building of socialism clashed with a gendered ideology where housework was women's work. This book serves not only as a window into class and gender inequality under socialism, but as a vantage point to examine the power of state initiatives to improve the lives of household workers in the modern world.

Full Product Details

Author:   Alissa Klots (University of Pittsburgh)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
ISBN:  

9781009467162

ISBN 10:   1009467166
Pages:   317
Publication Date:   12 June 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon it's release. This is a print on demand item which is still yet to be released.

Table of Contents

Introduction: a kitchen maid to rule the state; Prologue: domestic service and the Bolsheviks before 1917; Part I. Servants into Workers, 1920s: 1. From exploitation to socially useful labor: the early soviet discourse on domestic service; 2. Just like any other worker? Class, gender, and labor rights; 3. Kitchen maids in the school of communism: union work and political mobilization; 4. The new soviet domestic worker: the enlightenment campaign and domestic workers' subjectivity; Part II. In The Land of Victorious Socialism, 1930–1950s: 5. The turn to production: domestic workers and the first five-year plan; 6. Serving in a socialist home: paid domestic labor and etatization of the home; 7. Like one of the family: domestic service as a site of intimate negotiations; 8. The meanings of privilege: domestic workers in postwar society; Conclusion; Bibliography.

Reviews

'Klots's book offers an insightful analysis of how the Soviet state struggled with the issue of domestic service even as it pledged to do away with inequality and exploitation.' Maria Lipman, Foreign Affairs 'wonderful and illuminating' Wendy Z. Goldman, The Russian Review 'In this beautiful and emotional travelogue, gratitude and wonder alternate with alarm and exasperation.' Maria Lipman, Foreign Affairs

Author Information

Alissa Klots is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. She specializes in Soviet history, focusing on issues of gender, labor, and aging. Her work has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Dan David Foundation, and the Humboldt Foundation.

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