Abstract
Ruthchild explores the role of war in the Russian suffrage victory, arguing that hastening the collapse of the Russian empire was key to winning women the right to vote. However, war and revolution alone did not bring about women’s suffrage. Women were active on the streets, but after the overthrow of the Tsarist regime, women were overlooked initially—until women joined together from the educated and working classes to demonstrate for their own political rights. Once suffrage became law in 1917, Russian women in urban and rural areas voted in large numbers in local elections, indicating that voting was an issue of importance to the female masses as well as the elites.
Parts of this chapter appear in Ruthchild (2010).
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Ruthchild, R.G. (2019). Russia: The Great War and Women’s Political Rights. In: Franceschet, S., Krook, M.L., Tan, N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Women’s Political Rights. Gender and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59074-9_26
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