In the realm of communist regimes, theory and practice belonged to two different worlds: that of propaganda and that of harsh reality. The first pretended to be the universe of utopia, good will and justice. The second did not masquerade as anything but a patriarchal bureaucratic machine.

It was Lenin who stated after the success of the Revolution that, "In the land of the Soviets, every housewife must be able to rule the state." And it was also Lenin who announced that film was, "the most important of the arts." According to the logic of this rhetoric, Soviet cinema was supposed to be an oasis for women filmmakers in the male dominated ocean of the world's film industry.

Sfinga. Lucie Dvorakova (1989)

Actually, the beginnings were quite promising. Although women did not play the most prominent roles in the policy making bodies, they were particularly visible in all kinds of artistic activities blossoming in the years after the Revolution. Women painters, like Natalia Goncharova, Olga Rozanova, Lyubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova were among the leaders of the avant-garde. Poet Marina Tsvetaeva enjoyed a popularity equaled only by Mayakovsky's. Women filmmakers, Esfir Shub, Lili Brik and Olga Preobrazhenskaya, although working in the shadow of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko or Vertov, contributed significantly to the Soviet cinema of the 1920s.

Too Good to Last
Even if men still prevailed in these domains, one can not deny that there was no other country where women artists achieved so much in such a short time. This was too good to last and soon many women shared the fate of the majority of the avant-garde community. There was no longer a place for progressive ideals. Those who did not conform to the requirements of Socialist Realism emigrated or spent the rest of their lives in oblivion. Many perished during the witch hunts of the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Vera Ermolaeva's story epitomizes the destiny of thousands of people, men and women, who suffered and died only because they happened to live in the wrong place at the wrong time. An abstract painter, a splendid illustrator and a stage designer, she was also one of the closest allies of Kazimir Malevich in Vitebsk and Petrograd. In 1934, she was arrested and deported because her brother had been involved in "suspect" political circles many years before. A progressive illness, which led to the amputation of her legs, did not persuade the authorities to release her from exile in Siberia, where she eventually died in 1938.

At the time when this extraordinary woman was suffering unspeakably in forced isolation, some of her former mates from the defunct avant-garde were producing countless pictures and posters attributing new roles to men and women in socialist society. The representations of the new Soviet woman were mainly confined to one area: agriculture. A woman on a tractor, with a sickle, resting after mowing, always smiling and happy. Women did not disappear entirely from the public life during the Stalinist years.