On January 15, during the program “Socialist Platform Time” aired on the “Solidarity for Peace” platform, host Ilia Lobzhanidze stated that the Soviet Union was the first country that legalized women’s suffrage.
The claim that the Soviet Union was the first country where women’s suffrage was legalized is not true. The first country to grant women the right to vote was New Zealand. Additionally, before the establishment of the USSR, women already had the right to vote in several European countries.
New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote. On September 19, 1893, Governor Lord David Boyle Glasgow signed the new electoral bill, which allowed women to vote in parliamentary elections. This decision was preceded by several years of suffragist activism led by Kate Sheppard, advocating for women’s voting rights.
Before the Soviet Union was formed in 1922, numerous countries had already granted women universal suffrage. In some countries, women were given the right to vote with additional conditions and restrictions.
| Year: | Country: |
| 1902 | Australia (only white women) |
| 1906 | Finland (after declaring independence from the Russian Empire) |
| 1913 | Norway |
| 1915 | Denmark, Iceland (women over 40 years old) |
| 1917 | The Russian Republic (before Sovietization), Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, the Belarusian People’s Republic, Uruguay |
| 1918 | Austria, Germany, Poland, Azerbaijan, Soviet Russia, and Kyrgyzstan, Canada (women of British and French origin), Hungary (women over 24 years of age), United Kingdom (married women, women over 30 with higher education, women owning real estate) |
| 1919 | The Democratic Republic of Georgia, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the First Republic of Armenia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden |
| 1920 | Iceland, the USA (with certain restrictions on women of Afro-American, Indian, and Asian origin) |
| 1922 | Ireland |
Thus, even before the establishment of the USSR and the Sovietization of Russia, many other states had already granted women the right to vote. Moreover, it is important to note that elections in the Soviet Union were superficial. Citizens could only vote for a single candidate pre-selected by the Communist Party. When voting, voters would cast a ballot for the sole candidate without marking anything, and this act was considered a vote for that candidate. Additionally, the Soviet authorities paid great attention to elections, organizing active pre-election campaigns, and election days were celebrated with festive enthusiasm. Voter turnout was reported to be 99% or higher, and the candidates selected by the party received the same percentage of votes. Soviet media also emphasized the high turnout and the overwhelming support for the candidates.
The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.
Read detailed instructions for editing the article.
Read detailed appeal instructions.
