Women in the Russian and Soviet armed forces

This chapter examines the position of women in the Russian and Soviet armed forces, in which rhetoric about the employment of women has tended to exceed their roles in practice. Women served in the Russian military - including in combat roles - prior to the October Revolution, and one might have expected an increase in the role for women in the Soviet military given the new regime's egalitarian rhetoric. However, for the bulk of the Soviet period, egalitarian rhetoric did not mean that women would typically serve in combat roles, where the Great Patriotic War saw only limited exceptions to this norm. Large numbers of women served in largely non-combat, albeit often dangerous, roles, during the Great Patriotic War, although they were quickly demobilised at the end of the war. During the Cold War, the emphasis in Soviet society was understandably - given the demographic impact of the war - on women more as mothers than soldiers. Despite some rhetoric to the contrary, in post-Soviet Russia, the role of women in the Russian armed forces has declined after an early post-Soviet peak.