The role of the Bolshevik woman has been of much controversy, particularly at the beginning of the post-revolutionary Russian era. Prior to this revolution, the role of the Bolshevik woman was to tend to the household. Making sure the children were brought up in the traditional Soviet way of life was of utmost importance in the household of the average Bolshevik. The average woman would prepare a meal that consisted of bread, vegetables and broth; and for wealthier families cheese, and a source of protein. In Bolshevik folklore the mother had the influential role of raising the children in the household; specifically about the household, values and the culture that would be represented among family members. The success and the rise of the Bolshevik regime, and the downfall of Tsar Nicholas II and essentially his entire family, would subsequently leave a unique opportunity for the women of Russia. The Revolutionary War, and the large number of soldiers necessary to have an adequate defense left a void in the industrial sectors of the workforce, and that void was filled with hundreds of thousands of women, who had to assume the role left absent, by soldier fathers. As a platform Bolshevism advocated for the evolution of traditional gender roles; instead offering opportunities for women inside of the party when the Department for Work Among Women was created in 1919. Despite this strong push for change by the Zhenotdel, the immensely patriarchal society that had existed for hundreds of years prior, would supersede these efforts.