How successful were the Bolsheviks in achieving gender equality?

The answer to this question is not straightforward. It depends on how gender equality is understood, and, hence, what needs to be done to achieve it.

The Soviet vision of gender equality was rooted in classical Marxism. It viewed the oppression of women as a “by-product” of class inequality: as Friedrich Engels wrote in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884), 'the world-historic defeat of the female sex' happened with the introduction of private property.' 

Patriarchy (the oppression of women) and class oppression go together, as women toil at home for men and for capitalism at the same time.

As women produce/reproduce workers for capitalism (and for any class society), there is an incentive to control their sexuality and reproductive capacities and curtail their autonomy. Patriarchy (the oppression of women) and class oppression go together, as women toil at home for men and for capitalism at the same time. Thus, to liberate women, it was necessary to integrate them into the paid labor force, to make them economically independent. But women’s work participation would be problematic without free (state-supported) childcare, access to abortion and healthcare, paid maternity/parental leaves, affordable summer camps for children and other benefits. These can only be provided through a particular system of resource redistribution, and thus gender equality was also a case for socialism. This also explains why women tend to vote for leftist parties, which promise a broad social welfare, rather than tax cuts, more often than men do. The Soviet system provided multiple benefits for women, but viewed them as potential mothers and working mothers.

This also explains why women tend to vote for leftist parties, which promise a broad social welfare, rather than tax cuts, more often than men do. The Soviet system provided multiple benefits for women, but viewed them as potential mothers and working mothers.

In the West, the concern over gender inequality that arrived with second-wave feminism in the 1970s focused on something slightly different. According to this perspective, the oppression of women results from patriarchy (male domination) in all social domains, from sexuality to economics, to which capitalism adds some important dimensions. Patriarchy, being almost synonymous with culture (i.e. civilization) penetrates all social categories and institutions, such as language (which is not gender neutral), sexuality (with its “compulsory” heteronormativity, the very basis of patriarchal power), domestic violence (an extension of male domination) etc. It is impossible to put an end to the system without deconstructing and reconstructing its main social institutions. It is within this perspective that sexuality and LGBT issues came to the core: they were seen not only a matter of the individual rights of specific people, but as an instrument for a broad social transformation through deconstructing patriarchal heteronormativity. In this system, women are not necessarily viewed as mothers; there is more focus on the recognition of their autonomy and independent subjectivity, while “benefits” for working mothers can be minimal. For example, in the US there is no paid maternity leave for mothers (unless their employers would grant it to them): it is not viewed as a matter of gender equality.  

In the West, the concern over gender inequality focused on something slightly different. Women are not necessarily viewed as mothers; there is more focus on the recognition of their autonomy and independent subjectivity, while “benefits” for working mothers can be minimal.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pnETKMum9K4?wmode=opaque

Watch this video for an overview of three "Western" waves of feminism in order to reflect on what we could mean when we use the term "gender equality" in a modern Western context.

So when we ask about "gender equality" in the Soviet Union, we must be careful about what cultural meanings we ascribe to this concept.