" . . . well-researched and skillfully written . . . a welcome addition to the historical narrative on Soviet gender policy." --Journal of Women's History n . . . a highly persuasive, revealing, and well-documented account of early Bolshevik policy, practice, and language pertaining to the 'baba problem' and the unexpected ways female and male comrades responded to the party-state's tutelary role toward women.i --Slavic Review
n. . . a well-organized, sophisticated analysis of the difficulties involved in attempting to reconcile ideology with political, economic, and cultural realities.i --The Russian Review
n. . . richly documented, well argued account of Soviet attempts to come to grips with a melancholy tradition.i Virginia Quarterly
nThis is a rich and densely argued study that embeds the story of the zhenotdel in the context of the political struggles and institutional structures of this formative period of the Russian Revolution.i --American Historical Review
nThe conclusion to Wood's sophisticated analysis . . . is solidly based on a mass of detailed and original research.i --Slavonica
nThe scholarship in this book is of very high quality and the questions raised are ilargeI . . . an outstanding contribution to the tangled issue of gender in Soviet Russia.i Susan Gross Solomon
The Baba and the Comrade explores the early Bolshevik governmentIs efforts to mobilize women into the public sphere and involve them in the world of politics. Elizabeth A. Wood examines how prevailing images of men and women both facilitated and complicated construction of a new society and state.
