To explain the economic miracles in Germany and Japan after the Second World War, we need to pay close attention to the networks of miracle makers, who drew upon skill and knowledge that existed before and during the war. Under Allied tutelage, and in cooperation with workers and other groups that had previously been excluded from decision-making, members of these networks fundamentally refashioned German and Japanese cooperative capitalism into something more suited both to the emerging post-war capitalist economic order and to peaceful existence within it. Most of the fundamental reforms to German and Japanese capitalism were in place by about 1950, as were the networks that would prove essential to producing the economic miracle. However, we need to bear in mind that the renewed and reformed systems of cooperative capitalism did not function well immediately; in fact, the West German and Japanese economies languished as the 1940s drew to a close. What proved essential were two things explored in the next chapters: first, fundamental recasting of manufacturing in firms of all sizes in both countries; and, second, vastly increased domestic consumption followed crucially by worldwide demand for all sorts of products as the capitalist world entered the Golden Age.

Pursuing German and Japanese war criminals and gaining compensation for survivors were high on the agenda of the victorious Allies after 1945. Enthusiasm, however, waned considerably and unforgivably in the context of the Cold War and partial restoration of pre-war elite networks. Long-term continuities in business–government networks in the coordinated economies of Germany and Japan meant that some of those who had been charged with war crimes – and/or those whose wealth derived at least in part from activities associated with the war – figured prominently in major post-war scandals. Over time, however, those directly tainted with pre-1945 crimes and practices begin to retire and die off. Moreover, the export orientation of both countries, combined with other aspects of the globalisation of business, finance, and markets, also changed the composition and dynamics of elite networks. This happened more rapidly and thoroughly in Germany than in Japan, owing to Germany’s greater dependence on exports; its central role in the European Union; and its greater openness to foreign imports and investment. German corporate governance therefore experienced more far-reaching reform than its Japanese counterpart. For many of the same reasons, Germany has made greater strides towards coming to terms with its pre-1945 past than Japan.

The country’s “turn to production” in the late 1920s rendered “nonproductive” domestic labor irrelevant for socialism. Domestic workers were encouraged to participate in the Five-Year Plan by subscribing to state loans, agitating their friends and family in the countryside for collectivization, or by participating in state campaigns. The focus on activities outside domestic workers’ professional responsibilities signaled that intensification of domestic workers’ labor would not increase production. As the country was heading full speed toward socialism, there was renewed optimism about socialization of housework and disappearance of domestic labor, paid or unpaid. To facilitate the transition process, the labor union developed special programs that aimed to transfer domestic workers into the industries that were suffering from labor shortages. On the one hand, the new policy of mobilization of domestic workers into industry and the service sector created new opportunities for women employed in domestic service. On the other hand, it left housework without formal economic meaning for the socialist project and marginalized those women who remained in service.

Whereas in the rest of Europe World War II brought about the rapid decline in residential domestic service, the Soviet Union saw a significant growth of the domestic service sector. Even though many Soviet citizens felt uneasy about the class inequality that was at the heart of domestic service, there were no public discussions of the issue during the last decade of Stalin’s rule. Only after Stalin’s death did the country’s new leader Nikita Khrushchev allow for more open conversations about social problems. In these debates, domestic service became a vehicle to discuss class inequality in Soviet society. Gender inequality, however, was never questioned. On the contrary, the debates around paid domestic labor only reinforced the notion that was fundamental to gender inequality in the Soviet Union: that housework was women’s work. The failure to question the gendered division of labor in the home demonstrated the limits of the Bolsheviks’ program of women’s emancipation during a crucial period when the regime sought to reimagine socialism.

The union’s educational campaign was meant to reshape domestics to fit them into the proletarian mold. The union encouraged domestic workers to develop themselves through reading and writing, as well as participation in socialist leisure activities and revolutionary memory initiatives. This chapter demonstrates that ideas about class and gender fundamentally shaped the project of turning domestic servants of the old days into the “New Soviet Domestic Workers,” empowering them, but simultaneously limiting their agency. Domestic servants were subjected to the top-down cultural enlightenment program of the labor union because they were viewed not only as the least developed among the proletarians, due to their peasant background and their gender, but also as being in the closest proximity to their petty bourgeois employers. The labor union’s disciplinary approach, however, provided space for domestic workers to engage creatively with the official discourse and use it to claim a place in revolutionary society.

Chapter 2 demonstrates how the recognition of the societal value of domestic service affected some aspects of domestic workers’ rights but not others. It analyzes debates around the 1926 law on domestic service and the effects it had on the domestic workers’ ability to resolve conflicts with employers in court or mediation. Domestic workers’ labor rights were limited by the new law to make their labor more accessible to employers: written labor agreements were no longer mandatory and there was no compensation for overtime work. Yet, the state was reluctant to limit domestic workers’ access to their employers housing after termination of contract because female homelessness was closely associated with prostitution. The new law put domestic workers at a disadvantage compared to other workers, which, together with continuing valorization of “productive” labor, made domestics seek employment opportunities outside domestic service. This chapter contributes to our understanding of the effects labor laws have on paid domestic labor and testifies to the importance of government regulations and protection.

After the official transition to socialism in the mid-1930s, the state continued to rely on urban women’s labor outside the home. With socialization of household tasks still a distant dream, domestic service was reimagined as an integral part of the socialist economy, signaling a major change in the understanding of housework’s place in Soviet society. The domestic worker became a reliable house manager, responsible for the maintenance of the Soviet housing stock, a dedicated nanny who raised Soviet children, and a professional caregiver who indirectly contributed to her employers’ productivity by taking care of their needs at home. Yet, the recognition of domestic workers as equal builders of socialism only solidified the gendered hierarchy of labor. Urban men and women working outside the home had the privilege of transferring the responsibility for housework to peasant migrants or women from other marginalized categories. As a result, many Soviet citizens continued to view domestic labor as degrading.