Replacing the Dead
The Politics of Reproduction in the Postwar Soviet Union
Mie Nakachi
Reviews and Awards
"...this book is a mustread for all twentiethcentury historians and policymakers." -- Karen Petrone, University of Kentucky, The Russian Review
"Motherhood, pronatalism, and the role of women have long been popular research topics for Soviet historians. This exciting new book answers an important, specific question in this field: why did a regime, which was fixated on raising the birth rate to replace the twenty-seven million war dead, legalize abortion at a time when abortion was illegal in almost all developed countries?....Nakachi places abortion in the wider context of gender relations and reproductive practices in the postwar Soviet Union....Her work also speaks to attempts to understand the way power and influence worked in the one-party state, and she shows that medical professionals could and did influence the government despite repression against them. The book will be of value to those interested in Soviet statecraft, policymaking, and the intelligentsia, as well as the more obvious fields of gender politics and the history of medicine." -- Jessica Lovett, H-Russia
"[This book is] much more than a history of demographic policy in the USSR. It deals both with the decision-making processes in the Stalinist USSR, with the social consequences of a simple law, and with the demographic and social consequences of the Second World War and the immensity of the imbalance between men and women which resulted from it; finally, it is interested in the transformations that went through the Soviet Union from the post-war period to today....By retracing a story which does not make Stalin's death a radical break,...it sheds light on decision-making processes in the post-war Stalinist USSR. It offers a social history, a contribution to a history of women from the post-war period to today, while opening up many avenues of research." -- Alain Blum, Cahiers du Monde Russe
"This important book by Nakachi analyzes both the Soviet regime's response to the demographic catastrophe created by WW II and the fallout from this response. To encourage population growth, women were given little choice about bearing children: increased restrictions on abortion and the virtual absence of contraceptives were tools to ensure the birth of more babies. To compensate for the gender imbalance created by wartime casualties, men were encouraged to pursue multiple relationships....The regime was ruthless in laying the cost of these policies on women. Nakachi explores the discussions and factions involved in developing the Family Law of 1944, and the failure of the policy to achieve its ends. She then traces the modification and post-Stalin reversal of the policy and carries the story forward to the present." -- Choice
"[This book] makes an important contribution to our understanding of gender relations and reproduction in the postwar Soviet Union." -- Jessica Lovett, University of Nottingham, H-Russia
"In the wake of the catastrophic losses of World War II, Soviet citizens sought to rebuild their lives and families. In this groundbreaking study, Nakachi examines the efforts of women, doctors, and health officials to counter the fierce pronatalism of the state. Her book is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the ongoing struggle over women's reproductive rights." -- Wendy Z. Goldman, co-author of Fortress Dark and Stern: The Soviet Home Front during World War II
"Replacing the Dead makes a quantum leap forward in our understanding of gender, reproduction, and family planning after World War II. Distinguished by impressive archival sleuthing and crystal clear prose, Nakachi's book is a landmark study that will inform and inspire a new generation of work." -- Paula A. Michaels, author of Lamaze: An International History
"Mie Nakachi's brilliant book shows conclusively the combination of incompetence and insensitivity in postwar pronatalist policies that criminalized abortion, restricted divorce, and liberated men from parental responsibility for children born out of wedlock. Nakachi shows how the authorities jerry-rigged the system to try to accomplish multiple goals at the same time, leaving only doctors and women themselves to advocate for women's rights to control their own fertility. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know not only about reproduction in the context of a demographic disaster but also about the workings of Soviet policy makers who often operated from hidden motivations that they shared only in behind-the-scenes documents." -- Elizabeth A. Wood, author of The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia
"A monumental and gripping study of the politics of the family and reproduction in the USSR under and after Stalin. Among other things, Nakachi explains how the world's first law to recognize a woman's right to abortion came about in 1955, and in a country without a modern feminist movement." -- Timothy J. Colton, author of Russia: What Everyone Needs to Know
