Under a Red Veil? Soviet Interventions Towards the “Emancipation” of Afghan Women, c. 1980-1988 (Research Summary)

This presentation draws on research conducted into the files of the Committee for Soviet Women (CSW) as well as the Communist Youth League (Komsomol) in order to investigate how the Soviet Union – a repressive totalitarian state in some ways, but also one with progressive policies towards women, at least in the Asian context – sought to integrate Afghan women into Second World institutions and feminist practices. A focus on women, while relevant to current American concerns about South Asia, also speaks to research agendas in current historical scholarship. Many scholars' work has shown how the mobilization, depiction, or call to “protect” women from outside traditions seen as alien plays a crucial role in the formation of empires, as well as resistance to imperial domination. Based on background reading, the initial hypothesis was that both Soviet policymakers on the level of Moscow as well as Soviet Communist operatives on the ground would actively seek to unveil Afghan women, following in the tradition of the hujum campaigns of the 1930s that sought to unveil and, in doing so, “liberate” Central Asian women.

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Timothy Nunan, of the University of Oxford, Corpus Christi College, was a 2011 Regional Policy Symposium participant.