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The radical transformation of the Soviet society had a profound impact on women's lives. Marxists had traditionally believed that both capitalism and the middle-class husbands exploited women. The Russian Revolution of 1917 immediately proclaimed complete equality of rights for women. In the 1920s divorce and abortion were made easily available, and women were urged to work outside the home and liberate themselves sexually. After Stalin came to power, sexual and familial liberation was played down, and the most lasting changes for women involved work and education.
These changes were truly revolutionary. Young women were constantly told that they had to be equal to men, that they could and should do everything men could do. Peasant women in Russia had long experienced the equality of backbreaking physical labor in the countryside, and they continued to enjoy that equality on collective farms. With the advent of the five-year-plans, millions of women also began to toil in factories and in heavy construction, building dams, roads and steel mills in summer heat and winter frost. Most of the opportunities open to men through education were also open to women. Determined women pursued their studies and entered the ranks of the better-paid specialists in industry and science. Medicine practically became a woman's profession. By 1950, 75 percent of doctors in the Soviet Union were women.
Thus Stalinist society gave woman great opportunities but demanded great sacrifices as well. The vast majority of women simply had to work outside the home. Wages were so law that it was almost impossible for a family or couple to live only on the husband's earnings. Moreover, the fun-time working woman had a heavy burden of household tasks in her off hours, for most Soviet men in the 1930s still considered the home and the children the woman's responsibility. Men continued to monopolize the best jobs. Finally, rapid change and economic hardship led to many broken families, creating further physical, emotional, and mental strains for women. In any event, the often-neglected human resource of women was mobilized in Stalinist society.
52. The main idea of this passage is that women in Stalinist society ______.
A) had economic opportunities that had never been available before
B) had difficulty balancing their work and family responsibilities
C) had new opportunities but also many hardships
D) moved quickly into the highest levels of government
53. In the last paragraph, "monopolize" probably means ______.
A) hold B) earn C) leave D) pay
54. The author's main purpose in writing this passage is to ______.
A) compare different systems of government
B) tell stories about women in Soviet Union
C) amuse the reader
D) provide information
55. The author's tone in this passage can best be described as ______.
A) disapproving B) emotional
C) objective D) sympathetic
56. We can conclude that the economic and social status of women in Stalinist society ______.
A) had been improved
B) was worse than before
C) had not Changed much
D) was better than that in capitalistic countries
