V. I. Lenin repeatedly stressed that the proletariat will not defeat its class enemies if it does not involve the broadest strata of the population in the struggle; "and it is impossible to draw the masses into politics without involving women in politics. For the female half of the human race is doubly oppressed under capitalism. " 1 In 1917, female workers made up about 40% of the Russian proletariat .2 Before the First World War, they prevailed in such traditionally "female" industries as textiles, clothing, and tobacco. By 1917, their share had increased markedly where previously only male labor was used: metallurgy, heavy engineering, etc., because they, along with teenagers, replaced the men who had left for the army. In Petrograd, the number of women who worked doubled during the three war years .3
War and hunger, merciless exploitation and the most difficult conditions of labor at the minimum wage, the disenfranchised position in society and the family pushed the workers to fight the existing system. As early as the beginning of 1917, the tsarist Okhrana reported: "The mothers of families, exhausted by the endless standing in the tail of the shops, who have suffered at the sight of their half-starved and sick children, are probably now much closer to the revolution than the Milyukovs, Rodichevs and Co., and, of course, they are much more dangerous, since they represent the same kind of a warehouse of combustible material, for which a spark is enough to start a fire " 4 .

On February 23 (hereafter dates are given in the old style), on International Women's Day, it was the workers who became skirmishers of the revolutionary battles. Thanks to the great organizational and political work of the Bolsheviks among the toilers, they remained an active force in the February Revolution throughout all the days. Pravda noted in its editorial: "A week ago, on February 23, in Petrograd, the old government prevented women workers from celebrating their day. Because of this, the first clashes took place at the Putilov plant, which turned into a demonstration and a revolution." 5
After the overthrow of Tsarism, the RSDLP (b) intensified its work among the proletariat as a whole, in particular among working women. On March 5, at the initiative of the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee, the Bolsheviks held a meeting of female employees of the Skorokhod, Dynamo, Siemens - Schuckert and other factories and recognized "the need for all women to organize themselves, and together with the revolutionary proletariat and the revolutionary army, and with the support of the Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, to fight for full equality of women, social insurance, 8-hour working day, confiscation of landlords', monastic, cabinet and appanage lands in favor of the peasants and for the democratic republic " 6 .

The newspaper Pravda paid great attention to this detachment of the political army of the revolution, publishing many materials from and for female workers. Researchers, referring to the women's issue at that time, most often refer to the magazine "Worker" 7 . Meanwhile, Pravda published significantly more materials on the problems of the women's movement. One gets the impression that this newspaper is not yet sufficiently involved as a source on this issue, especially when it concerns its correspondents.

Within a week after the fall of the autocracy, the editorial board of Pravda began to publish its own articles.-

1 Lenin V. I. PSS. Vol. 42, p. 368.

2 Gaponenko L. S. The Working Class of Russia in 1917, Moscow, 1970, p. 82.

3 Karpetskaya N. D. Workers and the Great October. L. 1974, p. 19.
4 Cit. by: Women Revolutionaries N. M., 1982, p. 3.

5 Cit. By: Mints I. I. Istoriya Velikogo Oktyabrya [History of the Great October], Vol. 1, Moscow, 1977, pp. 419-431.

6 Pravda, 9. III. 1917.

7 Karpetskaya N. D. UK. soch., p. 44 sl.

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read letters from women. Almost all of them reported that the overthrow of the monarchy did not make any changes in the lives of female workers, and women's work is still paid almost 2 times cheaper than men's 8. Rabkors repeatedly stressed that women are dismissed first of all 9 . Kanavino settlement, Balakhninsky Uyezd, Nizhny Novgorod province reported: "Where women work (as in the Molitovskaya factory), the worst attitude towards them is found on the part of the factory administration in general, and the lower one in particular, a lot of rudeness and cynicism" 10 . Similar information was received from the capital about hosiery workers, waitresses, domestic workers, and others .11
In the spring of 1917, Pravda devoted much space to reports on women's meetings and their resolutions, where among the main slogans of the Bolsheviks were noted the demands of women: universal suffrage, equal pay with men, reducing the share of women's labor in heavy production, prohibiting overtime and night work. In publishing this material, the newspaper propagandized the experience of the struggle of the most class-conscious and organized strata of proletarian women, 12 and acted as an organizer of weak, backward groups of working women.

In May-June 1917, the newspaper received the largest number of correspondence from laundresses. Almost daily they gave the newspaper information about the progress of the strike, which they participated in at the call of their trade union. Pravda launched a special column entitled "Laundresses ' Strike", where it published 43 workers ' correspondence (including information about the creation of a trade union), 29 of them about the struggle against landlords and strikebreakers, and about gratitude to the proletariat of the capital for its support .13 The owners "do not feed the workers," the laundresses reported, "they drive them out of the apartment, intimidate them with a fine, and say that they will be arrested by order of the Council." 14 As for the apostates "who sold the interests of the workers for 30 pieces of silver," the laundresses wrote:: "We stigmatize you, Judas, and publish your names so that all your comrades will know you and not accept you among them." 15 When the owners organized the Prudent union, Pravda published an appeal from the strikers "To the laundresses who have joined the strikebreaker union": "Comrades! You joined us in the struggle against our oppressors... Throw off the dirty stain of treason. " 16
In one correspondence, the laundresses stated :" With the fall of the old regime, we, the working laundresses, also demanded our human rights, and the owners respond with beatings, give us boiling water, lock up the strikebreakers and sit armed in the door... That is why we, the working laundresses, appeal to all the workers of Petrograd to take any measures against such mockery of us. We... we applied to the labor department of the executive committee, but our request remained a voice crying out in the desert. " 17 Correspondents informed the newspaper: "The strike continues for 26 days. The owners satisfy all their demands, except for payment for the strike. "18 and finally, on May 31: "The laundresses' strike ended in victory. " 19 The entrepreneurs are ready to pay for the days of the strike .20
From March to July 1917, a significant place on the pages of Pravda was occupied by correspondence of domestic workers: seven of them were published. The first of them reported on one of the meetings of domestic workers: "The police asked those gathered to disperse... We must ensure that we also have a place to meet. " 21 In the second, imbued with faith in the central Or-

8 Truman G. A. working class in the struggle for the victory and consolidation of Soviet power. M. 1975, p. 63.

9 Rabochy Put (under this title Pravda was published from September 3 to October 26, 1917), 8, 16.IX.1917.

10 Pravda, 8. IV. 1917.

11 Ibid., 29. IV. 1917.

12 Ibid., 26. III. 1917; 12. V. 1917; 18. III. 1917; 31. V. 1917; 28. V. 1917; 14. III. 1917.

13 On behalf of the PC of the RSDLP (b), A. M. Kollontai led the strike, which the bourgeois press called the "queen of laundresses" (Goncharskaya S. S. Washerwomen's Trade Union in 1917). In: In the Fire of revolutionary battles (Districts of Petrograd in two revolutions of 1917). Collection of Memoirs. Moscow, 1967, p. 486). At the head of the strike committee were young laundresses A. I. Sakharova (Khvatova) and V. R. Novik (Kondratyeva), who left memoirs (Novik (Kondratyeva) V. R. Slovo o laundresses. In: Leningradki. Memories. Documents. Essays, L. 1968).

14 Pravda, 7. V. 1917.

15 Ibid., 12. V. 1917.

16 Ibid., 18. V. 1917.

17 Ibid., 24. V. 1917.

18 Ibid., 26. V. 1917.

19 Ibid., 31. V. 1917.

20 Ibid., 1. VI. 1917.

21 Ibid., 12. III. 1917.

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"We ask the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party to cast its vote for us, too, who never have freedom, except for a few hours a month, "it said .22 A similar request was contained in the correspondence a week later: "Friends and comrades, remember us too... We, the slaves " 23 . And again: "You have opened heavy doors to prisoners in prisons, so open them to us!" 24
In connection with the July events, the newspaper published the following correspondence: "We, the oppressed and forgotten party of labor - domestic servants, cannot but add our own weak voice to that egregious protest... concerning the dirty slander raised against the revolutionary party of the Bolsheviks and their press. Although we do not understand the words that are new to us: bourgeois, cadets, socialists, democrats, but life itself has imprinted on us an indelible commandment...: "The oppressed workers are always our brothers" 25 .

Despite all the differences in the cultural level, age, occupation, family and social status of the correspondent workers of Pravda, they were united by their faith in the RSDLP (b) and their devotion to the ideas of Bolshevism. Employees P. I. Mukhina and N. P. Rumyantseva sent to the editorial office statements about the violation of electoral rights in the elections. On the evening of May 27, two men stopped female voters at the polling station and asked them to show their list number. Mukhina wrote:: "I replied that the 5th 26 . Then, under the guise of checking, they demanded an ID card and an envelope and immediately tore it up. When I say that this is violence, these two men say that they will "punch their faces" if I insist. " 27 Rumyantseva acted more energetically: "I refused to tell them, they got into an argument with me, but I managed to get through the door of the election commission and get away from the rapists." 28
In the workers ' correspondence, much attention was also paid to the struggle of young people for electoral rights. Thus, Pravda published a resolution of the assembly of young people protesting against the deprivation of their voting rights, the resolution was signed by the chairman of the assembly E. N. Pylaeva: "We, 18 and 19-year-old workers, working women and soldiers,.. we demand that the representatives of the democrats, the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers 'and Peasants' Deputies, strive to grant us the rights for which many of us fought without sparing our freedom and life itself, on an equal basis with our senior comrades. " 29 The meeting was held on June 22 at the Association Club. A 19-year-old Bolshevik woman named Pylaeva (who was recommended to the party by M. I. Ulyanova) made a fiery speech at it, after which the young proletarians decided to create a Socialist Youth Union in Petrograd and elected Liza as a member of the committee. Later, she went down in history as one of the organizers of the Komsomol, an active participant in the Great October and Civil War 30 .

K. Yefremova, an employee of the Siemens and Galske factory, reported to the newspaper that she had broken with the compromisers: "Dear comrade Editor, I beg you to publish my transition from the Menshevik Party to the Bolshevik Party" - and explained her decision: the compromiser government had reinstated the death penalty and thrown the best people's leaders into prison. "During the six months of the revolution, the banners of the Mensheviks turned pale, and their leaders faded," she concluded .31 In the correspondence on the pro-question of the members of the organizing committee of the House of Peoples in der. Women of the Voronezh volost, Podolsky uyezd, Moscow province, among whom would be-

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., 19. III. 1917.

24 Ibid., 12. IV. 1917. V. V. Trzhaskovoky, a Bolshevik since 1915, a deputy of the Petrograd Soviet, witnessed such a scene in the editorial office of Pravda: young maids, yesterday's peasant women, complained to the editor of the newspaper K. S. Yeremeyev "about the daily merciless exploitation. "We must unite," Konstantin Stepanovich taught them. Trzaskowski said that as a result of the conversation, the article "We are forgotten" appeared, and in subsequent issues there was a response from the servants from the Petrograd side, an editorial article "The Situation of domestic workers", information about the general meeting in the circus "Modern". "This is just one example of K. S. Yeremeyev's everyday party-organizing work," concludes the memoirist (Trzhaskovsky V. Eremeyevskaya smile. In: The Bolshevik Pravdist. Memoirs of K. S. Yeremeyev, Moscow, 1962, pp. 101-102). Pravda contributed to the creation of the Domestic workers ' trade union and, as soon as it was created, published a message from its board on organizational issues.

25 Worker and Soldier (under this title Pravda was published from July 23 to August 10, 1917), 1.VIII.1917.

26 List of candidates from the RSDLP (b).

27 Pravda, 3. VI. 1917.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., 25. VI. 1917.

30 Heroes Of October. Vol. II. L. 1967, pp. 299-300.

31 Rabochy put, 20. IX. 1917.

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The following words stand out from the adopted resolution: "We cannot calmly listen to the false patriotic exclamations of the capitalists.. when we see the small children of fellow soldiers, pale and sick from hunger, when we hear the cries of poor soldiers 'mothers:" My children are begging for bread, "while the bourgeois capitalists choke on gold, grow fat and throw millions of money on luxury goods." 32
A.V. Afanasenkova, a correspondent from Tver Province, wrote about the growing organization of workers in Vyshny Volochok, where 7,000 out of 10,000 worked in textile factories and were simultaneously tied to their "hungry allotment" - land. "Until recently, there were no workers' organizations in our city, " she said....But the revolution also made us look out the sun... The beginning of the union was laid at a women's rally on April 4 this year....The activity of the union board is expressed mainly in settling conflicts between workers and entrepreneurs, and each time with a victory for the workers." 33 A.V. Artyukhina, a member of the party since 1910, lived under the surname Afanasenkova 34 in Vyshny Volochyok. In the autumn of 1912, she was exiled from the capital to her native city, where she worked as a weaver in the factories of Prokhorov and Ryabushinsky.

From March 1917, Alexandra Vasilyevna headed the party and trade union work in Vyshny Volochyok. She recalled these days: "First of all, we established contact with the working masses in the factories and factories. They subscribed to their own Bolshevik newspaper, Pravda, in large numbers, with their own money, and distributed it at enterprises... At the beginning of April, we organized a general trade union in Vyshny Volochyok, where all workers and employees of textile, glass and sawmill enterprises joined... It was there that the workers went to get information about events, to sign up for a trade union, to find out if they could join the Bolshevik party. We tried to give honest and truthful answers to all these questions. Here we are... they organized rallies and meetings, and held concerts on their own " 35 (usually revolutionary songs were performed at such concerts).

"Hundreds of thousands of nameless heroines" marched "in step with the workers and peasants behind the red banner, with the slogan of the Soviets through the ruins of the hated Popov-tsarist past to a new future." 36 Among them were correspondents of Pravda.

32 Pravda, 14. V. 1917.

33 Ibid., 9. VI. 1917.

34 The surname is spelled differently: Afanasenko and Afanasenkova.

35 October in Vyshny Volochyok. Collection of memoirs. Kalinin. 1957, pp. 82, 116-118.

36 Kollontai A.M. Women wrestlers in the days of Great October. In: Selected Articles and Speeches, Moscow, 1972, p. 370.

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