These Communist Women Are the Feminist Icons You’ve Never Heard Of
A new book profiles five extraordinary women of the Communist world — dedicated socialists and champions of women’s equality whose lives exemplified the contradictions of a system defined by pervasive oppression as well as genuine social achievements.
Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who had killed 309 Nazis by the age of twenty-six, was sent by her government on a tour of the United States and became close friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. (Sovfoto / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Who deserves credit for building the great civilizations? Lately we’re crediting a lot more people than we used to.
We’ve started recognizing that many of our cities rest upon an ugly history of slave labor, for example. A congressional commission, to take another example, just recommended renaming army bases that previously honored Confederate traitors, replacing the names with heroes that embody “the best of America,” including lesser-known women and African Americans. And middle-grade nonfiction books now more often focus on heroes and heroines of color — Harriet Tubman or Jackie Robinson, for example — in a needed effort to redress what was once a nearly exclusive focus on the achievements of white men.
But even in our increasingly category-conscious culture, the category that Kristen Ghodsee takes as the focus of her new book, Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons From Five Revolutionary Women — namely, communist women — still seems unlikely to be the object of widespread posthumous recognition.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.