The article is devoted to the study of mass political mobilization of women in the 1920s. The problem is considered on the materials of the Yenisei province. The authors used a wide range of archival materials and local periodicals. They showed that the party and the state did not have the means to carry out full-scale, systematic work among women. The women’s
departments experienced a permanent shortage of personnel and lack of funding. But they explained to women their civil and political rights, developed the delegate movement, worked to eliminate illiteracy, increase the electoral activity of women and their representation in government. Female workers and peasant women demonstrated a weak motivation for participation in public and political life, a low ability to make managerial decisions, and the assimilation of a new gender role. Party leaders in the regions of the country for a long time did not understand the purposes and meaning of Soviet policy on women and virtually ignored it. The authors concluded that the situation could not be different in agrarian regions with undeveloped social infrastructure, insignificant industrial production, predominance of rural population with such features as low level of education and social mobility, collectivism, religiosity. For this reason, the next stage of the national gender policy in 1930—1950s was associated with the process of accelerated economic modernization of the country.
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