The representation of Eastern women in feminist magazines close to the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was strongly influenced by changes in Italian politics and by the party’s own political and cultural evolution. During the Togliatti era, a systematic opposition prevailed: on the one hand, Western women were portrayed as subordinate to the logic of capitalism; on the other, Soviet women were depicted as a paradigmatic model of socialist emancipation. From the second half of the 1960s onwards, while continuing to symbolize the achievements in terms of freedom and equality attributed to Eastern Bloc countries, the image of Soviet women was increasingly presented in more accessible and less ideologically rigid forms. Editorial boards began to portray Eastern women through more popularizing content, individual success stories, and depictions of everyday domestic life. In the Berlinguer era, in parallel with the PCI’s gradual distancing from the models of “real socialism”, a more complex and problematic representation of Eastern European women emerged. Finally, during the years of the “riflusso” (withdrawal), the image of Soviet women largely became ambivalent, suspended between the recognition of progress and the critique of contradictions, until it was ultimately reworked in a democratic key within the context of the “nuovo corso” (new course).
