Protection of Motherhood and Infancy

PROTECTION OF MOTHERHOOD AND INFANCY Analysis of the concept of protection of motherhood and infancy. The concept of P. m. and i. cannot be identified with the attitude toward mother and child in various historical periods. The position of woman in the family and society is determined by production relations and the economic role of the woman herself. During the period of primitive communism, there existed infanticide and cannibalism among nomadic tribes, while among others, who were on a comparatively higher stage of development and had passed to agriculture, this did not exist. This different attitude toward woman and child is explained by economic conditions, by the greater development of productive forces, which created better conditions of existence and raised the level of living. If nomads and hunters treated children cruelly, who interfered with their economy and their productive practice, this was explained by the state of productive forces, by the level of the source of existence, which determined the policy of the clan on this question. When there was a shortage of products, children and old people were killed, when a pregnant woman was an obstacle in the hunt for wild beasts, she naturally did not enjoy either care or respect. When humanity rose one step higher from the nomadic, cattle-breeding period and passed to agriculture, favorable changes occurred in the means of existence of the tribes in their economic life, and the value of each extra productive unit increased. Each productive unit becomes valuable, as it can find application in the cultivation of grains, which the tribes took up. Then the attitude toward the child changes, infanticide dies out. Such regulation of the tribe's population depending on the level of means of production, on production relations, which determined the character of life and the sum of customs distinguishing the clan way of life, cannot yet be called P. m. and i. In later periods, in the legislation of ancient Egyptians and ancient Jews, we find norms of the legal position of woman, reflecting the value of woman as a purely economic unit; in the Talmud there are not a few purely hygienic precepts, which can be interpreted as the origins of the birth of medical science. In the writings and drawings of the ancients there are interesting reflections of the life of that time, for example, the forms of artificial feeding directly from the udders of animals, the form of child's feeding bottles, etc. But this also cannot be considered the beginnings of P. m. and i., just as one cannot call the care of a mother for her child the protection of infancy. During the slave-owning period, pregnancy of a slave woman was considered a crime against the owner, as it lowered her productive value, and new life had little value, as it was more expensive to raise a slave than to obtain one. Later, when the reproduction of slaves, 'the brood,' acquired a certain value for the slave owner, this found reflection in the common law of that time; punishment began for maiming a pregnant woman. But this was explained by the protection of the interests of the ruling class and cannot be called P. m. and i. In the epoch of the feudal system, woman of the ruling classes—large feudal nobility and trading bourgeoisie—was the mistress, confined in a narrow circle of the family. She enjoyed a certain kind of respect, as her husband—a knight or large feudal lord—was engaged in campaigns, and she was the housekeeper of the closed natural economy and although she lived secludedly, in the narrow circle of her castle, she had a certain economic value. If we descend lower on the social ladder to the craft guild artisanry, there the woman was also confined in a narrow circle of the family, and if a weaver helped her husband in his work, she helped right there in her room, having children near her. There did not yet arise a sharp contradiction between the productive functions of woman and motherhood, and therefore there were no measures which could at least relatively be called social measures. For P. m. and i. of the peasantry there was no impulse among the ruling classes and there was not sufficient organization among the peasant masses. If in witchcraft processes punishment was postponed until childbirth, this was only a reflection of hypocritical Christian morality. The impoverishment of the peasantry, the gradual ruin of artisans, as manufactories—germs of the present largest industrial enterprises—arose, led to poverty, pauperization of the masses. From the side of the ruling classes, attempts of a semi-charitable nature are noticeable, treated by some authors as the beginnings of P. m. and i. This is the care of foundlings. The first organizers of foundling care were the church, monasteries; the first home for foundlings was organized in 787 by the Archbishop of Milan. Foundling care, from which the church raised itself free workers, can be considered a bright indicator of the absence of P. m. and i. as a social system. The era of industrial capital creates such conditions of life for the peasantry and working class, which already caused the birth of the problem of P. m. and i. When owners of large wealth began to organize first manufactories and then factories, they ruthlessly exploited those who came to these factories. In search of the cheapest labor power, they began to involve women and even children in production. This era of the birth of industrial capital in all decisively countries is characterized by ruthless, nightmarish exploitation, reflected in Engels' work 'The Condition of the Working Class in England.' In industrial enterprises, women and children worked in the vast majority. Children went to the factory at 5-6 years old; 12-16- and even 20-hour working day was the rule. In striving to attract the cheapest hands, manufacturers threw out the male labor force from enterprises. Engels gives as illustration a very naive letter of one weaver, who, coming to his friend, found that he was sitting by the hearth and darning his wife's stockings, who went to the factory at 5 o'clock in the morning and came home late in the evening. In chapter XXIV of the first volume of 'Capital' on the primitive accumulation of capital, Marx gives a description of the exploitation of children in the first half of the 18th century: 'In Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and especially in Lancashire,' writes Zilden, 'recently invented machines were applied in large factories built near sources capable of driving a water wheel. To these places, located far from cities, suddenly thousands of labor hands were needed. There was a particularly strong demand for small, nimble fingers of children. It immediately became customary to take apprentices from London and Birmingham and other workhouses. Many, many thousands of these small helpless creatures from 7 to 13 or 14 years old were transported to the north. It became customary with the masters (i.e. child kidnappers) to clothe, feed and house their apprentices—in houses located near factories. In many factory districts, especially in Lancashire, these innocent, defenseless creatures, delivered into the power of the manufacturers, were subjected to the most outrageous tortures: they were worked to death by excessive labor, beaten, chained, subjected to the most exquisite and cruel tortures... Exhausted by hunger to the last degree, turned into skeletons, they were often flogged into labor. Sometimes they were driven to suicide.' The economic structure of the period of primitive accumulation of capital was built on the most ruthless exploitation of the weakest. Bebel says that the worker and woman have in common that both are oppressed; but woman has the sad advantage that she became a slave before man, and that she is doubly oppressed—as a productive force and as wife and mother. With the involvement of woman in production, a sharp contradiction arises between her biological function and her productive function. Woman is torn away from her hearth, from her family, from her child; the family splits into two parts: into the productive part, which goes to work, and into the homeless, helpless part, which is exploited together with the parents or becomes the property of the street. But 'as soon as the working class, stunned by the noise of production, came to itself to a certain extent, it began to offer resistance, and first of all in the homeland of large industry—in England. However, for three decades the concessions it achieved remained purely nominal' (Marx). Only in 1833 was a law issued which limited the labor of adolescents in factories from 13 to 18 years—15 hours. By the supplementary Factory Act of 1844, for the first time a group of adult workers—women over 18 years—was placed under the protection of the law. They were equated with adolescents, their labor was limited to 12 hours, night labor was prohibited. This is explained by the fact that factory workers since 1838 had made the bill for a 10-hour working day their economic slogan. Only from this time can it be said that in the struggle for a normal 8-hour working day from the beginning of the 19th century, measures are outlined which can be characterized as the beginnings of P. m. and i.'

But a long struggle was still needed, the unification of the powerless, unorganized workers, their formation into a class, and the realization by this class of its specific, class interests, for Protection of Motherhood and Infancy to take its proper place among the problems raised by the proletariat. History of the development of Protection of Motherhood and Infancy. The first political movement of the working class in England was the Chartist movement of the first half of the 19th century. Among the demands, the Chartists put forward the 10-hour working day, and in 1848 a law was introduced for the 10-hour working day for women. By this time, the workers had already realized themselves as a class with separate interests; the working-class party was beginning to form. In 1848, the Communist Manifesto was published - a declaration of the forming Communist Party, in which the 10th point put forward the demand for the protection of female labor and socialist education of children. This demand remained a slogan for a long time and in essence has still not been implemented anywhere except in the USSR. But it is important that this demand was put forward. and from then on it occupied an increasingly prominent place in all the demands of the working class. In 1866, at the first congress of the First International, the demand for the protection of female labor was put forward. The proletariat from then on, among its political and professional demands, consistently put forward the demand for the protection of female labor, and thus began the struggle for Protection of Motherhood and Infancy. When the class struggle of the proletariat took shape, when socialists appeared in parliaments, they systematically in 1869, 1877 and later put forward the demand for the protection of female labor. In 1869, in Germany, the demand for a 10-day leave after childbirth was put forward. It was rejected by the bourgeoisie. In 1877, the demand for leave for 3 weeks before childbirth and 6 weeks after childbirth was put forward. It was also rejected. The Paris Commune of 1871, for the first time in history, in one of its first decrees, abolished the difference between legitimate and illegitimate marriages, and thus equalized the rights of 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' children. But with the fall of the Commune, the rights won by the workers were also buried. In 1878, a referendum on maternity leave was held in Switzerland. It passed, and in 1878 a law on maternity leave was issued, but without pay. In this form, the law existed until 1910, but in fact it had no application in life, as the working woman took all measures not to use this law, since maternity leave without pay doomed her to starvation. The 1890s - the era of flourishing capitalism. This period is characterized by a somewhat different attitude toward the problem of motherhood on the part of the ruling classes. This is explained by no means by humanitarian motives of the bourgeoisie. The development of capitalist society was accompanied by a sharp decline in the birth rate. From the 1870s of the 19th century, there is a steady decline in the birth rate in all Western European countries and Russia. True, there is a parallel decrease in infant mortality, but the decline in the birth rate outweighed the decline in mortality, and capitalist society was faced with the threat that the decline in the birth rate would lead to a negative population growth, as had already happened in France, to a decrease in the 'relative surplus' of labor hands, to a decrease in the 'reserve army of labor' (see table). Birth rate in Europe 19-20th centuries per 1,000 inhabitants. Countries Years 1871- 1881- 1891- 1901- 1911- France . . 25.4 23.9 22.2 20.0 18.7 Switzerland . 30.5 29.0 27.1 25.8 23.5 Norway . . 31.0 30.8 30.3 27.4 25.5 England . . . 35.4 32.5 29.9 27.2 24.0 Germany . . 39.1 36.8 36.1 32.9 27.8 Italy . . . 36.9 37.8 35.0 32.4 22.9 Europ. Ros- 50.4 50.4 49.2 46.7 43.5 This circumstance forced the bourgeoisie to concentrate attention on the issues of combating infant mortality. The bourgeoisie did not raise the question of Protection of Motherhood and Infancy as a social measure related to all the conditions of labor and life of the female proletarian masses. Only by the population policy of the bourgeoisie can it be explained that in the 1890s an international conference on labor protection was convened in Germany, which noted the decline in the birth rate, high mortality of infants. Measures aimed at combating infant mortality still constitute the main content of work on Protection of Motherhood and Infancy in capitalist countries. As the class struggle intensified in Western Europe and Russia, woman was naturally drawn into this struggle. The women's movement initially had a feminist character and developed together with the bourgeois feminist movement. This movement had as its content the struggle for political and voting rights for women, but gradually this bourgeois ideology fell away, and the working woman entered the class movement as a class fighter. The result was proletarian women's conferences, which put forward as one of the main demands Protection of Motherhood and Infancy and the protection of female labor: in Copenhagen - in 1910, in Vienna - in 1912, and in Russia - a few days after the October Revolution. History of Protection of Motherhood and Infancy in tsarist Russia. In Russia, the development of Protection of Motherhood and Infancy was also most closely connected with the struggle of the working class. In 1885, during the first strike of the Morozov textile workers, the demand for the abolition of night work for women was put forward. This demand was included in the law, but in fact, for hypocritical moral reasons, Russian industrialists sabotaged this law, finding that if the husband works in the factory at night, then the wife should work with him, otherwise the family will disintegrate. In 1897, during the strike of miners, the demand for social insurance of workers and the organization of hospital assistance to workers and working women was put forward. This demand was essential for Protection of Motherhood and Infancy, but it was rejected by the bourgeoisie. Only from the end of the 1890s, when the working class was forming as an organized force, when the upsurge of the workers' movement began before the 1905 revolution, the question of insurance of workers and the organization of hospital assistance was raised again in 1904. The revolution was suppressed; with it, this question was also buried. It arose again in 1908 during the Second State Duma. During the period of the First State Duma, a commission was appointed, which ceased its work together with the dissolution of the First Duma and was revived only in 1908, when the question of insurance arose again. But this question received its implementation only in 1912, when maternity insurance was introduced, i.e., maternity leave. Of course, this branch of insurance was also distorted and mutilated, like all social insurance under tsarism in general: it was carried out mainly at the expense of the workers, was deprived of any self-government, was a purely bureaucratic organization under the direct influence of capitalists. In addition to this imperfect, limited maternity insurance in pre-revolutionary Russia, the beginnings of Protection of Motherhood and Infancy were outlined in the activities of a few liberal charitable societies, which organized one or two dozen institutions, mainly consultations for infants. The largest of these societies were: The Union for the Fight Against Infant Mortality (1904), established on the initiative of Dr. N. A. Russkikh, the Moscow Society for the Fight Against Infant Mortality (1909), and the Society for Protection of Motherhood and Infancy in Moscow (1908). In 1913, the All-Russian Guardianship for Protection of Motherhood and Infancy was established, which had a small milk kitchen, a nanny school in Tsarskoye Selo, and individual institutions in Moscow and other cities. And that was all. Like any liberal reforms, these measures had no essential significance for the proletariat. The war almost completely destroyed these timid liberal initiatives. As an independent system related to all the conditions of labor and life of the female proletariat, Protection of Motherhood and Infancy received its formulation and realization only after the October Revolution. Thus, Protection of Motherhood and Infancy is a class problem, born from the struggle of the working class in large capitalist production. The history of Protection of Motherhood and Infancy is part of the history of the struggle of the working class. Protection of Motherhood and Infancy abroad. Systems of Protection of Motherhood and Infancy, related to all the conditions of labor and life of the broad working masses, do not exist to this day in capitalist countries. The population policy of the bourgeoisie gave rise there to the organization of a number of institutions aimed mainly at combating infant mortality. In Germany, from the 1890s of the 19th century, a network of consultations began to develop - the predominant type of German institutions - and a scientific center was created to guide this movement - Kaiserin Victoria Haus (in 1909). The care of extramarital and abandoned children in Germany has always been the duty of the authorities for the care of poor children and orphans, i.e., mainly municipal institutions.

The German system of child care is based mainly on placing children with foster families under the supervision of the children's protection departments of provincial and imperial authorities. The number of infant care centers is extremely small. The organization of obstetric care is for the most part in the hands of private practicing physicians. In France, there is almost no system of similar measures that is carried out by city municipalities in Germany. There this work has taken the form of charitable societies. In France there are up to 9,000 small charitable societies that mainly establish shelters for unmarried mothers, organize family upbringing for foundlings and children whose mothers cannot keep them (mainly domestic servants and saleswomen), give bonuses to large families, and take a number of measures aimed at encouraging birth rates. At present, the highest administrative body for all matters of P. m. and i. in France is the Ministry of Labor, Hygiene, Public Welfare and Prevention. Attached to the ministry is a department of social hygiene and public welfare. One of the departments of this department manages all matters of public welfare, care of children under guardianship of private individuals, public organizations or the state, protection of infants, protection of children from tuberculosis, assistance to large families, etc. The functions of the department of social hygiene and public welfare are mainly legislative. Consultations for infants are quite numerous, but in the vast majority of cases these are small-scale institutions and do not have a milk kitchen. The number of infant care centers is extremely small. Civil law in France forbids the search for fathers of illegitimate children, and all the burdens of raising an illegitimate child fall entirely on the mother. The overwhelming number of mothers give the child to wet nurses in the countryside. Wet-nursing has existed in France since ancient times, which gave rise to a special profession of intermediaries between mothers in cities and wet nurses in the countryside and the appalling mortality rate both among children given to be nursed and among the wet nurses' own children. The high mortality rate of children led to the creation of so-called educational centers (les centres d'elevage) for family upbringing of children, where there is permanent presence of physicians and a visiting nurse. In England, the fight against child mortality until 1919 was in the hands of various private organizations. In 1919, these private organizations were united by the Central Council for the Protection of Infancy and Children. Since 1918, with each council being a local self-government body, a committee for P. m. and i. has been established. The central authority reimburses 50% of the expenses incurred by local self-government. In 1919, a Ministry of Health was established, which included in its program the entire protection of motherhood and children. The predominant type of institution in England is the so-called center for P. m. and i. consisting of consultations, sometimes small inpatient facilities for infants or dining rooms for mothers, where meals are distributed to indigent pregnant women. The number of consultations is quite large, and around them visiting nursing is strongly developed, the number of infant care centers is extremely small; there are almost no lying-in homes. The entire organization of medical care is in the hands of private practicing physicians. Protection of motherhood and infancy in the USSR. The problem of P. m. and i. in the Soviet Republic was posed in its full breadth by the October Revolution under the slogan of the emancipation of women. The program of the Communist Party states: 'Not limiting itself to the formal equality of women, the party seeks to free them from material burdens and obsolete housework by replacing it with communal houses, public dining rooms, central laundries, infant care centers, etc.' In 1920 Lenin wrote: 'We have not left in the true sense of the word a stone unturned of those vile laws about the inequality of women, about restrictions on divorce, about the disgusting formalities accompanying it, about the non-recognition of illegitimate children, about the search for their fathers, etc.-laws, the remnants of which are numerous in all civilized countries to the shame of the bourgeoisie and capitalism. We have a thousand times the right to be proud of what we have done in this area. But the cleaner we cleaned the ground of the debris of old bourgeois laws and institutions, the clearer it became to us that this is only the clearing of the ground for construction, but not the construction itself. Woman continues to remain a domestic slave despite all the emancipatory laws, because she is oppressed, stifled, dulled, humiliated by petty housework, chaining her to the kitchen and nursery, wasting her labor with work that is unproductively, petty, nervewracking, dulling, and stifling to a barbaric degree. The true emancipation of woman, true communism will begin only there and when the mass struggle (led by the proletariat possessing state power) against this petty housework begins, or rather, its mass reconstruction into large-scale socialist economy.' The fulfillment of this task indicated by Lenin is facilitated by the system of P. m. and i. Political equality of women, widely implemented social insurance of motherhood, protection of labor of women and adolescent girls aimed in the interests of mother and child, marital and family law, and finally the numerous network of P. m. and i. institutions in industrial centers, in collective farms and state farms, freeing women from child care and organizing collective upbringing of children-these are the main links in the multifaceted work on P. m. and i. The peculiarity of the Soviet system is that it sets as its task not only the improvement of the health of the female and child population of the Soviet Union, not only the fight against child mortality, not only the creation of conditions most favorable for childbirth and rational upbringing of the child-the organization of P. m. and i. in the USSR always has in mind the woman in the process of labor, in the process of class struggle, in the process of building a new cultural life and seeks to facilitate her performance of these functions without detriment to her biological function related to the reproduction of society. Of course P. m. and i. also performs socio-hygienic tasks, since in the past and present we still have extreme backwardness of the population in socio-hygienic and sanitary terms. Despite the fact that child mortality has decreased by 30% compared to the pre-revolutionary period, the USSR still ranks among the first places in terms of child mortality among European states. We still have higher female morbidity due to insufficient development of obstetric care, due to insufficiently fully implemented rationalization of female labor. But this is not the essence of the problem. In it, questions of a production and everyday nature prevail, the tasks of organizing labor and everyday life on new socialist principles. This is the real content of the work. The fight against child mortality for P. m. and i. is a transitional moment. Even when this issue is finally resolved, the organization of P. m. and i. will not lose its significance, but will only be restructured, and the energy that is currently spent on the fight against child mortality, on the fight against abandonment, will be redirected to the organization of children's life on new collective principles, to the mass involvement of women in solving production tasks, to the organization of a socialist way of life. Work on P. m. and i. is determined by production and everyday conditions and has production and everyday tasks. This is what characterizes the work in the USSR and distinguishes it from work in the West. P. m. and i. in the USSR is not only a production and everyday problem, but also a political problem, since the organization of P. m. and i. as a system of social order was called into being by the October Revolution, since, in organizing its work, it contributes to the involvement of masses of working women and peasant women in solving the economic, cultural and political tasks facing the party and Soviet power. By involving women in solving the tasks of socialist construction, facilitating their participation in the political life of the country-the bodies of P. m. and i. perform a political task, organizing the practical basis for political work among women. This task is particularly clearly manifested in recent years in light of the struggle for fulfillment of the five-year plan in 4 years. This significance of P. m. and i. is particularly vividly manifested in the organization of work in the national republics and regions. There P. m. and i. often was the first step in involving women in socialist construction. The organizational form of work in the East was taken to be the combination of P. m. and i. consultations with clubs. Practical assistance to mother and child accustomed the Eastern woman to the club. Oppressed for centuries and veiled, the national woman for the first time entered social and political life, passing through the threshold of the consultation. Often there for the first time woman

PROTECTION OF MOTHERHOOD AND INFANCY

488 removing the veil. The imparting of first hygienic skills to the female population of the outskirts is carried out through consultations. Organization of obstetric care, consultation, club, nurseries at women's clubs, red yurts with a midwife, mobile medical detachments, which necessarily includes a midwife who, in addition to her direct work, also conducts cultural and educational work—these are the forms of work in the national republickins for P.M.i. The struggle against survivals of a distorted way of life, against early marriages, and the involvement of women in production were to a large extent carried out with the help of organizations for the protection of motherhood and infancy. Stages in the construction of the protection of motherhood and infancy in the USSR. P.M.i. was organized within the system of the People's Commissariat for Social Assistance in November 1917. The emergence of this organization within the system of social assistance bodies was greatly facilitated by the fact that the first People's Commissar for Social Assistance was A.M. Kollontai—one of the first organizers of the women's workers' movement in our country, who, when organizing social assistance, energetically raised the issue of motherhood as the most important for the development of the proletarian women's movement. P.M.i. remained in the NKSO until 1919, then after the merger of NKTruda and NKSO, it was transferred to the united People's Commissariat NKTrudsobes, and soon to NKZdr. A few months later, NKTrud again split into the Commissariat for Social Assistance and the Commissariat for Labor. Social assistance for the disabled went to the Commissariat for Social Assistance, and tasks related to production, including assistance to disabled workers, went to NKTrud in the form of social insurance of all types, including maternity insurance. The entire organization of institutions for P.M.i. found its place in the NKZdr system. At the same time, there arose a danger of fragmentation of this system, i.e., the separation of consultations in NKZdr and houses for mothers and children and nurseries in NKSO. Only the intervention of V.I. Lenin prevented the fragmentation of the unified P.M.i. system, and this department was completely included in NKZdr. A characteristic of the first period of building the work of P.M.i. is the decree issued in December 1917, which vividly and clearly defined the character, tasks, and prospects for the development of this cause. The language of this decree was determined by the nature of the first days of the revolution, when it was necessary through the language of agitation to bring every measure to the consciousness of the broad working masses, to mobilize and unite them around the Soviets. Here is this decree: "Two million barely kindled infant lives on earth were extinguished annually in Russia from the darkness and ignorance of the oppressed people, from the stagnation and indifference of the class state. Two million suffering mothers annually shed bitter tears on Russian soil, covering with calloused hands the early graves of senselessly perished innocent victims of a distorted state system.-For centuries, human thought seeking a path finally emerged into the open space of the radiant bright era of free construction by the working class itself of the forms of protection of infancy that should preserve the mother to the child and the child to the mother.-Bright examples of capitalist morality—foundling homes with their colossal child overcrowding and mortality, with their disgusting forms of wet-nursing and nursery trades, with the desecration of the sacred feelings of the destitute worker-mother, turning the citizen-mother into a dull milch cow,-all these horrors of the nightmare night, fortunately for Russia, with the victory of workers and peasants, sank into the black darkness of the past, morning came, bright as the children themselves.-You, working women, working citizen-mothers, with your sensitive hearts, you, bold builders of a new social life, you, ideological pedagogues, children's doctors, midwives—all of you are now called by the new Russia to merge your minds and feelings in the construction of a new edifice of social protection for future generations. All institutions serving the child, large and small, of the Commissariat of State Relief, from foundling homes in the capitals to modest village nurseries, merge into one state organization and are transferred to the Department for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy, in order to form an unbroken chain with institutions serving pregnancy and motherhood, to receive from them and continue the fulfillment of one common state task—the creation of citizens strong in spirit and body". Charitable societies that in prerevolutionary Russia dealt with the protection of motherhood and inf. during the war became impoverished, by the time of the October Revolution their work had almost stopped, and their few institutions in Moscow (four consultations, a Home for Infants, a nursery on Krasnaya Presnya, a Home for Mothers and Children at the Lepekhinskoye Maternity Shelter, and several others) led a miserable existence. The P.M.i. department organized after the October Revolution for some time subsidized the institutions of societies, then, finally organizing and mobilizing around its work all useful, Soviet-minded specialists from society activists, included the institutions of societies into its system, and the societies were liquidated (in 1919). Many old workers in this field responded to the call of the first decree and from the moment of organization of Soviet P.M.i. with their experience were of great benefit in building the new cause. These were doctors and professors: Alekseev N.N., Grauerman G.L., Gershenzon A.O., Rakhmanov A.N., Raits M.M., Sklovsky N.L., Fedyinsky S.I., Spersky G.N., Kisel A.A., and Molchanov V.I. They formed the first commission of specialists organized by the P.M.i. department to develop special and organizational issues related to the construction of the system. Institutions for the protection of motherhood and infancy. P.M.i. in the USSR was always built as a unified system, where individual links are connected by an unbroken chain of continuity: consultation for women, maternity home, midwifery station, consultation for infants, nursery, home for mothers and children, home for infants, socio-legal (domestic) consultation, hostel for unmarried mothers—such was the network of institutions outlined as early as 1918. At present, the composition of the dispensary association for the protection of motherhood and infancy includes as a unified section for the protection of motherhood and infancy consisting of: 1) women's consultation, consisting of three parts—consultation for pregnant women, gynecological, and sexual; 2) children's consultation, consisting of three parts—consultation for infants, consultation for early childhood (from 1 to 3 years), and pedagogical consultation; 3) socio-domestic office with an abortion commission; 4) nurseries serving the district of the dispensary association; 5) children's food station (where it exists) or milk kitchen of the given district; 6) playgrounds for infants and early childhood; 7) maternity home and maternity department of a hospital and 8) abortion clinic. 487

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484 Content of work. The organization for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy (O.m.i.) outlined certain principles and content of work at the very beginning, but depending on the economic and political tasks facing the country and the party, methods and forms of work changed, were restructured, while leaving the general guidelines and overall direction intact. After the October Revolution, the economic life of the country, developing along the path to socialism, was restructured more than once: the period of war communism, the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP), the recovery period of our industry, the period of reconstruction, socialist reorganization of the economy, and finally the period of socialist advance on all fronts and the completion of the construction of the foundation of the socialist economy. In the initial period of the first years of the revolution, the organs for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy, like all other organizations of cultural construction, tried to respond as much as possible to the awakened activity and awakened needs of the masses. After the imperialist war and the battles of the revolution, many ruined families remained, deprived of breadwinning fathers, and destitute single mothers. The famine of 1920-21 left a mass of orphans and foundlings. Therefore, it was quite natural that the predominant type of institution during this period was infant homes. A large number of infant homes and nurseries were built, primitively organized, without specially trained personnel. In the infant homes of this period, there was high mortality; the nurseries did not meet hygiene requirements and were built without taking into account the cultural forces with which the institutions could be properly managed, and without taking into account the material possibilities for their maintenance. With the division of state and local budgets during the NEP, institutions for the protection of motherhood and infancy were transferred to the local budget, and the organization experienced a period of sharp reduction of its network (1921). During the first revolutionary period, about 3,000 institutions were organized—a figure that was only reached again significantly later—in the thirteenth year of the revolution. In the first organizational period, the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy developed exclusively in cities. The organization of nurseries, consultations for children, obstetric care for working women, and the resolution of the abortion problem—the main points of work for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy during this first period. When in 1923 at the XII Party Congress the slogan 'all-round assistance from city to village' was given, the organs for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy, in accordance with the economic and political tasks that faced the country, restructured their work, raising the question of organizing their work in the countryside. But at first this work was set as a prospective task: there were not yet exact forms and methods of work in the countryside and it was not yet given decisive importance. And only in 1925 at the Third All-Union Conference on the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy did the question of work in the countryside come to the forefront. To organize work in the countryside, which was backward in economic, cultural, and sanitary-hygienic respects, was especially difficult. There were almost no cultural forces, and peasant women were not yet organized. The forms and methods of work that were then planned for the countryside were reduced to the organization of obstetric care and summer village nurseries. The industrialization of the country and the socialist reconstruction of agriculture necessitated a new review of the forms and methods of work for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy. The vast scale of industrialization was accompanied by a significant growth of women's labor in production. The prospects for women's labor in production under conditions of socialist rationalization and reconstruction of industry are most closely related to raising the qualifications of the female workforce. One of the main obstacles on the path to raising the qualifications of women's labor are the family and domestic conditions of the mass of working women. In connection with this, tasks were set before the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy: 1) to create conditions facilitating the working woman's combination of motherhood with production (factory nurseries); 2) to create such forms of nursery service that would facilitate the working woman's opportunity to raise her general and technical literacy, to improve her qualifications (extended-day nurseries, evening nurseries, nurseries at clubs, home nurseries). The introduction of the continuous production week and the transition to a five-day week set a new task of restructuring institutions for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy. To adapt nurseries to the continuous work week, it was necessary to reorganize nursery work in such a way as to give the working woman a full rest on her day off, to give her the opportunity to use this day to improve her qualifications, to satisfy her cultural needs. Nurseries are converted to extended-day service, a new type of nursery is introduced—home nurseries in multi-apartment houses for workers. The question arises of serving the female proletarian mass being sent for training—delegate women, activists, etc.—during their public work. The powerful development of the collectivization of agriculture at the same time raised in full the question of serving state farms and collective farms. A new form of work has been introduced—permanent nurseries in state farms and collective farms. In addition to accounting for and serving children, consultations are given the task of studying the labor and living conditions of collective farm women, the sanitary conditions of the area, instructing personnel, and periodic visits to collective farm nurseries; in addition to serving pregnant women, childbirth, and the postpartum period, obstetric points are assigned the functions of protecting the labor of pregnant collective farm women (supervising the granting of leave before childbirth, directing pregnant women to lighter work). When organizing work in collective farms, institutions for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy follow the production processes—into the brigade, into the field (field nurseries). The last period, associated with the fulfillment of the five-year plan in 4 years, with the basic completion of collectivization, with the construction of powerful industrial giants and the emergence of new populated points around them, with the construction of the foundation of the socialist economy, again raised the task of reviewing methods of work for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy, creating a new type of institution. The question arose of organizing work for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy at new construction sites, in the conditions of new socialist cities, of restructuring nurseries, of their mass expansion, in order to fully free female labor for production, to serve hundreds of thousands of women being drawn into industry and agriculture, to put all work for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy at the service of socialist production, at the service of fulfilling the five-year plan in 4 years. The Protection of Motherhood and Infancy at new construction sites is organized with such a calculation as to ensure the maximum use of the reserve female workforce in construction and production, to facilitate under the conditions of giant construction the creation of the most favorable conditions for the child population of infant and early ages, and consequently to ensure 100% coverage of nursery-age children with cultural-domestic service (nutrition, nurseries, mass health measures, summer nursery grounds, vaccinations, etc.). The organizational form of work is a primary point for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy consisting of: 1) consultations for women, 2) consultations for children, 3) a milk kitchen with supplementary food kitchen, 4) ward-station for infants, 5) small nurseries (for 30 children) (regulations developed by the Institute for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy in Moscow). By raising the question of 100% coverage of their institutions for children of early age and their collective upbringing, the organs for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy approach the question of restructuring daily life on new socialist principles, since the first step in the socialization of daily life is the socialization of the functions of upbringing and nutrition (it is precisely the socialization of these functions that is a necessary prerequisite for the mass involvement of the female workforce in production). As of 1/1 1932, according to incomplete data from the People's Commissariat of Health, the protection of motherhood and infancy has the following network of institutions: Institutions Nurseries in industrial centers 128 723 places 177 358 places i Permanent nurseries in 1 state farms and collective farms 102 6E0 » 128 417 » ! Seasonal nurseries .... 1 441 400 » 2 242 764 » : Number of maternity beds : Number of child consul- 26 939 - i tations ........ - Number of women's consul- - Number of milk kitchens - The structure of the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy is included as a separate sector for the protection of motherhood and infancy in the People's Commissariats of Health of the RSFSR and union republics (in Ukraine, the sector for the protection of motherhood and infancy also includes child protection). In the provinces, there are inspectors for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy consisting of 1-2 persons. In large industrial centers like Moscow, within the system of provincial health departments, separate sectors for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy have been established with their own budget and the right to dispose of credits. Within the sectors, functions are differentiated according to separate groups, of which in recent years the groups for organizing obstetric care and nurseries have been singled out as key areas of work. In districts, organizational functions are most often entrusted to district consultations, but in some districts inspectors for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy have already been introduced. Fundamental questions, policy, and work plan for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy in various periods were decided at all-union conferences on the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy. From 1920 to 1929, a total of 4 all-union conferences were held: the first congress in 1920 was held jointly with the first congress on work among women of the CC VKP(b) (Women's Department); the second congress was in 1923, the third in 1925, and the fourth in 1929.

Since 1929, there have been no all-Union conferences, but there have been two conferences: one for workers in industrial centers in April 1931, and one for workers in agricultural districts in December 1930. Starting from the First Congress in 1920, all work on P. m. and i. was carried out with the active assistance of the women's departments, with the help of which all campaigns for P. m. and i. were conducted. The large contingent of women delegates mobilized around the work of P. m. and i. helped and helps in the broad development of this work. Commissions for the improvement of labor and living conditions (KOTiB) during consultations, commissions for P. m. and i. at sections of rural soviets, cultural and living commissions of collective farms, nursery councils—in all these forms of organization of Soviet public opinion around the work of P. m. and i.—women delegates from workers and collective farm women play a huge role. Only by relying on Soviet public opinion, on trade union and collective farm activists, on activists from soviet sections, is it possible for organizations of P. m. and i. to overcome difficulties in the mass development of the network of institutions, mobilizing both human resources and material means for this purpose. By broadly developing work on the mass organization of institutions, P. m. and i. involves the public organizations of the Union in this matter. Kolhoztsentr, Tsustrakh, Tsentrozhilsul, the system of consumer cooperation include allocations for the protection of motherhood and infancy in their production and financial plans and participate in the organization of nurseries. Personnel. Courses for sisters of the protection of motherhood and infancy, organized as early as 1918, have already produced several batches of sisters during this time; planned supply of institutions began; the organization strengthened and began to grow systematically year after year. The training of personnel, the scientific study of socio-biological issues related to the care of young children and women in connection with motherhood began. In 1922, the State Scientific Institute of P. m. and i. was organized in Moscow; later, a similar one was established in Leningrad. In 1932, institutes of P. m. and i. already existed in almost all regions. The State Scientific Institute of P. m. and i. in Moscow organized in 1922 the "Journal for the Study of Early Childhood" (from 1932 the journal was renamed "Journal for Early Childhood") and in 1925—"Protection of Motherhood and Infancy." The Leningrad Institute of P. m. and i. has been publishing "Issues of Pediatrics, Pedology, and the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood" since 1930. The Ukrainian Department of P. m. and i. published the "Bulletin of P. m. and i." in the form of periodic collections. A total of 2 issues were published: No. 1—July 1922 and No. 2-3—November 1922. Courses for sisters at the institute were reorganized into a technical school for training sisters for P. m. and i. and midwives of a new type. The training of personnel for P. m. and i. was of decisive importance for the development of the cause, since there were almost no sisters for P. m. and i., doctors-specialists in infancy before the revolution. The courses for sisters of the protection of motherhood and infancy and midwives at the Moscow State Scientific Institute of P. m. and i. were the first institution after the revolution for training workers of a new type. Now such technical schools are spread throughout the Union. The training of doctors for P. m. and i. until recent years was carried out mainly in the Moscow and Leningrad institutes, where 3-4 month periodic courses for the retraining of peripheral doctors were organized. These courses still exist today. With the development of regional institutes, such courses for regional workers have been organized at each of them. From 1927 to 1930, a one-year internship for graduating doctors for specialization in the protection of motherhood and infancy was established at the institute. The enormous scale given to the development of the network for P. m. and i. in connection with the mass involvement of women in production in cities and the collectivization of agriculture required special measures for the training of qualified personnel. In 1930-31, during the reorganization of medical education, independent faculties of P. m. and i. were organized in medical institutes in Moscow, Leningrad, Omsk, Rostov-on-Don, Saratov, Kazan, Voronezh, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa, and Dnepropetrovsk. In addition, evening faculties were organized in Moscow, Leningrad, Saratov, Rostov-on-Don, Tomsk, Sverdlovsk, and Samara. The mass training of middle-level workers, mainly nursery staff, is carried out through the organization of short-term courses. The People's Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR for 1932 has adopted a minimum of 6-month training for urban nursery workers, 4-month training for workers in permanent rural nurseries with a 2-month production internship, and 2-month training for workers in seasonal nurseries. Courses are organized at almost all institutions of P. m. and i., especially rural ones: 850 rural consultation centers, about 7,000 medical districts, and 3,500 permanent nurseries serve as bases for training nursery workers. The necessity of these measures is evident from the fact that all technical schools in 1932 can provide only 5,000 sisters, while to provide only for rural nurseries, 100,000 nursery workers are needed in 1932. By widely mobilizing collective farm public opinion, organs of P. m. and i. attract the female collective farm activist to these courses. Correspondence courses, first organized by the Institute of P. m. and i. in Moscow in 1929, have developed widely. In the second five-year plan, the organization of P. m. and i. sets for itself the following problems: 1) reduction of female morbidity and thereby increase the efficiency of female labor; 2) reduction of absenteeism due to female illness and domestic reasons; 3) 100% coverage with bed assistance for childbirth in industrial centers and cities and 100% coverage in the socialist sector of agriculture (65-75% with bed assistance and 25-35% with home assistance); 4) sharp reduction of abortions and complete elimination of illegal abortions; 5) reduction of child mortality in cities and agro-industrial centers to 10% and in collective farms and state farms to 12%; in Moscow and Leningrad and in giant factories—to 5 percent; 6) sharp reduction of acute childhood infections; 7) organization of public feeding of young children through the creation of children's food stations; 8) organization of mass removal of children to the countryside for the summer; 9) participation in the planning of socialist cities and villages from the point of view of children's interests; 10) organization of communist education of children on a mass scale: a) children's sector in the socialist city, b) round-the-clock, extended-day, house nurseries, c) sanatorium-type nurseries, d) institutions for neurotics, etc. The practical content of the work of various levels of the protection of motherhood and infancy—see Abortion, Alimony, Educational homes, Consultation, Milk kitchen, Exposure, Childbirth assistance, Social insurance.