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# How Maternity Leave Emerged in the USSR and What Kolkhoz Women Received from 1935
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/po-stalinskomu-ustavu-kolkhoznoi-zhizni-krestianka-kolkhoznitsa-poluchaet-otpusk-za-mesiats-do-rodov-i-na-mesiats-posle-rodov/
- Published: 2026-11-10T08:43:07.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-10T09:00:14.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Mores, Society

> Under the Stalinist charter of collective-farm life, the peasant woman of the kolkhoz receives leave for a month before the birth and a month after it

Before 1917, maternity leave did not exist in Russia. Whether a pregnant working woman kept her place depended on the decision of her employer, and the pregnancy itself could quite readily serve as grounds for dismissal.

On 22 December 1917 the Council of People's Commissars adopted the decree "On Insurance in Case of Illness". The document introduced payments for working women for eight weeks before childbirth and eight weeks after it. Hence, in fact, maternity leave in Russian is still called "decree leave" (*dekretny otpusk*), after that very decree of the Soviet authorities.

In subsequent years the length of leave and the manner of payment changed more than once, and in different years the Soviet system granted women anywhere from 63 to 112 days of leave.

In 1935 such leave was introduced for collective-farm women as well. It lasted 30 days before the birth and 30 days after, that is, roughly half as long as that of women engaged in manual labour. Working women were paid 100% of their earnings, collective-farm women 50%. But the size of the payment depended on the financial position of the collective farm and could turn out to be below the norm.