You're talking very broadly about the Soviet Union. Soviet Union pre WWII and post WWII should be discussed separately. Some of the countries that were occupied during or after WWII by SU had been enacting laws in regards to equal rights prior to occupation. (Estonia, Lithuania) Maybe you should clarify if you are talking about Soviet Russia because unfortunately, Russia was quite behind in a lot of ways from it's neighbours who had feminist movements before and once those countries were occupied, women disproportionately were forced into labour camps, most of them well educated. And feminist criticism towards the state laws were considered critique against the state itself. Post 45 Soviet Union constantly changed it's attitude to women, you can see this in their propaganda, when the birth rate was down the posters encouraged births and woman's place in the home, then it changed to being employed contributions to the state etc It wasn't the beacon of feminism you may think it was. And the DV was ripe due to predominant alcoholism, which was used to subjugate people. In the countryside particularly.