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This article considers the relationship between communism and feminism in the inter-war period, taking as its starting point the transnational debate between researchers of diverse backgrounds that has emerged in a new journal devoted to women’s and gender history in Eastern Europe. It proposes three different angles on the ambiguous feminism of the Communist International and other party organizations, looking first at the opportunities and limitations represented by the formal equality accorded to women communists, and then at the development and reception of more radical ideas, before ending with three case studies of women cadres that reveal the negotiations involved in reconciling the contradictory expectations promoted by the Stalinist regime and communist organizations.