The Kremlin continues its attempts to uphold “traditional values” with new initiatives, like this one: compulsory “mediation” of family disputes to help spouses to resolve their differences with the assistance of a mediator and to preserve marriages. While Russia has had a law on pretrial mediation in civil, labor and family disputes since 2010, family mediation has remained voluntary, until now.

Unsurprisingly, this marital mediation initiative draws directly on the Soviet past: in the USSR, there was a similar social mechanism that functioned as mediation and became widespread after Stalin’s death. In the first years after the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet leaders framed marriage and divorce as matters of private agreements. A married couple could divorce simply by separating, though former spouses – whether husband or wife – were still encouraged to notify the relevant authorities, at least by postcard. As a result of such ease, many men divorced multiple times, leaving women and their children without financial or social support.

Once Stalin consolidated power, the state began to exert far greater control over citizens’ private lives. Divorce rates continued to rise, and by May 1935 the problem could no longer be ignored: that month, the USSR recorded an average of 38.3 divorces for every 100 marriages, up from 37.0 in 1934. The so-called “postcard divorce” was abolished in 1936 as Stalin tightened state control over other intimate matters, notably criminalizing male homosexuality and abortion.

Then World War II began, and the ensuing chaos further destabilized marriage as an institution in the USSR. Couples and newlyweds were separated, while mass dislocation made casual sexual relationships easier. In 1944, the Soviet government introduced more stringent procedures for divorce, but the forces of the war were too strong. “I got married in 1939,” explained one Soviet man who had left his wife in 1943 and married another woman. “The war soon began, I was soon on the front, and my feelings toward my wife cooled off.” Another man confessed: “I was married before the army, but in the army, I found out that my wife had married someone else. So I married another woman. She left me when I was demobilized.”

Shortly after the war, party authorities tried to clean up this marital mess, urging local party organs to hear the cases of communists who had abandoned their families. After Stalin died in 1953, this practice became even more entrenched: the Khrushchev leadership shifted from mass repression to controlling the private lives of Soviet people through targeted interventions. For example, on September 17, 1957, the Molotov regional committee of the Communist Party reviewed a party member, who acknowledged that for the past two years he “could not organize his family life with his life.” The party members accused him of “un-party-like behavior in relation to his family” and condemned “his categorical refusal to preserve his family for the sake of his child.” Party organs had summoned the man to defend his conduct, but he had repeatedly ignored the advice of fellow communists to get his life in order. As a result, he was severely reprimanded and expelled from the party for his “unworthy conduct in family life.” Similar “family mediation” was common in other parts of the USSR.

Such mediation continued well into the Brezhnev era and, to the chagrin of Soviet officials, did not occur in the way party leaders had intended. Though some party organs did intervene informally in the private lives of their comrades, such intervention was sporadic and ineffective. Many officials were aware of inappropriate behavior by other officials for months or even years, turning a blind eye to it. This “system of informal discipline,” as Edward D. Cohn argued, was never “daily” or “methodical,” and “formal party interventions became more intrusive without becoming effective.”

Interestingly, though party officials did try to bring families closer together, there was one thing that bound husband and wife more effectively than any “mediation” could: the housing problem. Khrushchev had initiated a mass housing campaign that failed to resolve the country’s chronic housing shortage, which persisted in subsequent decades. During perestroika, for example, one in every five people in the Soviet Union was still waiting for a private flat. No one wanted to move and give up their treasured living space, so spouses often knew that even if they divorced, there was no real mechanism for “dividing” the property.

Even when divorce was inevitable, spouses still sought to retain the apartment, albeit with caveats: they would simply separate the space with a curtain or partition. Such arrangements were particularly damaging for women. For example, a 1991 Washington Post article described a woman who, after divorcing, occupied half of a single room divided by a sheet, where she slept with her child. In the other half of the room lived her former husband and his new girlfriend. The situation was so unbearable that she attempted suicide, though she was ultimately rescued.

Russia’s new initiative to introduce compulsory mediation for collapsing marriages is yet another iteration of the decades-old trend of state expansion into the private lives of its citizens. Historical experience shows that such interventions are largely unsuccessful – especially when it has come to addressing the structural causes of marital breakdown, such as war (which is very much present in Russia today) – instead moralizing conflict and shifting responsibility onto women. Furthermore, the compulsory nature of mediation betrays its real goal – it is not meant to be a support mechanism, but another tool to discipline. Finally, the Soviet experience demonstrates that forced reconciliation, contrary to the claim that it strengthens families, simply traps people within them.