The Zhenotdel (Russian: Женотдел, IPA: [ʐɨnɐdʲˈdʲel]), the women's department of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), was the section of the Russian Communist party devoted to women's affairs in the 1920s. It gave women in the Russian Revolution new opportunities until it was dissolved in 1930.

The Zhenotdel was established by two Russian feminist revolutionaries, Alexandra Kollontai and Inessa Armand, in 1919. It was devoted to improving the conditions of women's lives throughout the Soviet Union, fighting illiteracy, and educating women about the new marriage, education, and working laws put in place by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In Soviet Central Asia, the Zhenotdel also spearheaded efforts to improve the lives of Muslim women through literacy and educational campaigns, and through "de-veiling" campaigns.

The Zhenotdel persuaded the Bolsheviks to legalise abortion in Russia, the first country to do so, in November 1920. This was the first time in history that women had the right to free abortions in state hospitals.

In 1906, Kollontai attempted to organize women into a separate organization within the Russian Social Democratic Party, to discuss the issues they faced at home and in the workplace. This was met with hostility as most employers viewed female workers as "backward", and were only utilized as cheap labor to be abused at will in the workplace.

Kollontai wanted to stray these working women away from the Russian feminist suffrage movements that she felt were superficial and lacked the essence of revolution. She began to teach factory women in St. Petersburg that only through socialism and joining their husbands and brothers in the proletariat revolution, would bring about their liberation. Because of her radical beliefs at the time, she was forced to flee and the beginning of a women's movement she was attempting to create, dissolved.

In 1913, the movement reappeared when the Bolshevik's founded a journal called Rabotnitsa, which detailed issues regarding women. The journal was edited by Inessa Armand and Lenin’s sister, Anna Elizarova. The editors were all arrested as czarist Russia continued to reign. The introduction of World War I brought women workers and soldiers wives together to actively strike against the war and the food pogroms in 1915 and 1916. The harsh living conditions and famines that erupted during the war made the second stage of the women’s movement impossible to maintain.

In 1917, when Kollontai, Armand, and Krupskaia returned to Russia after World War I, they went to work on re-establishing the movement that lost momentum during the war. They republished the journal Rabotnitsa, and used it to organize and start a campaign of women workers in the cities and female textile workers in the neighboring Russian towns. Kollontai also organized a strike of laundresses in Petrograd for better working conditions. The journal was instrumental in instructing women to organize themselves and arrange meetings to spread knowledge and "agitation". Before the October Revolution, this organization already had every aspect of mobilization necessary. All that was left was to legitimize a separate women’s department within the Soviet Union.

In the summer of 1918, the Central Committee agreed to establish the First All Russian Congress of Women where there would be an election to select delegates. Because this was planned during the civil war and transportation was widely unreliable throughout the Soviet Union, only 40 delegates showed up. However, almost immediately the leaders started to receive telegrams from all over the country telling them that they were delayed but were going to make it. 1,200 women managed to get to Moscow. They developed a plan to create a separate women's organization based upon local delegates. This program would include: ending domestic slavery, communalize households to free women from domestic work, end prostitution, protect women's labor and maternity, and bring about a class consciousness to the women of the Soviet Union. This was the first time these women were involved in anything resembling a political space. Although most of these women wanted to be liberated from the double burden all working women experience, they were also afraid that the revolution would strip away traditional family life. Kollontai gave a speech in response, later entitled "The Family and the Communist State", going in detail about how the traditional family structure has already drastically changed and it is up to us to acknowledge this reality and embrace communalized changes that will bring about liberation for all working women.