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Gifts from The Morning Star
Midwives of socialist transformation
MARY DAVIS recommends a book revealing the indispensable – and frequently ignored – role played by women in the Bolshevik Revolution
Leading to revolution: International Women’s Day in Petrograd, 1917 [State Museum of Political History of Russia]

The Women’s Revolution: Russia 1905-1917
by Judy Cox
(Haymarket Books, £16.99)

PREMISED on the indisputable fact that women’s role in the revolutions in Russia of 1905 and the two revolutions of 1917 have been largely hidden from history, Judy Cox’s book redresses the imbalance in the torrent of publications two years ago marking the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution which largely ignored it.

Her slim volume is thus a welcome antidote. Using secondary sources, she challenges the dominant narrative from a socialist-feminist perspective and introduces the reader to many lesser-known Bolshevik women.

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