Technically, before the ideologically-charged forced meme took over, both masculine товарищ tovarišč and feminine товарка tovarka were in use for “comrade”, but only the former was chosen for the newspeak as a gender-neutral title, in line with the Revolution’s professed equal-rights ideals. (Yes, seriously. Of course, the Revolution’s professed ideals at a particular time and place are to be distinguished from its ideals next year, the next town over, or indeed its actual goals or consequences.) The forcing was so effective that the title now only remains in military regulations, the ideology being both out of fashion and rarely relevant, and even the original generic term has essentially fallen out of use with no real replacement (I understand “comrade” in English has also suffered as a result).
I’d say titles are a red herring, though,—unlike e.g. Polish, Russian doesn’t really use them outside a few exceptions (a news article might refer to Professor $SURNAME, a letter might be addressed to Master Ambassador), and essentially never to address somebody in person. That role traditionally falls to $NAME $PATRONYMIC (thanks to the Varangians), though you might hear $NAME nowadays as well.
The problem is that every adjective, numeral, or possessive that attaches to a noun and every pronoun that refers to it depend on whether the noun is {{{animate,inanimate} {masculine,feminine},neuter} singular,plural} and which case it is in. (Unlike in Romance languages, plural forms are not gendered.) Having a grammatical gender is not optional, and being neuter means that you are either dead or were never alive to begin with. (The converse is not true: тело telo “body” is neuter, труп trup “corpse” is inanimate masculine, мертвец mertvec “dead man or woman” is animate masculine. The sex of the diseased makes no difference.)
Common nouns that refer to people—professions, roles, demonyms, agents, patients, etc.—are usually either masculine only whatever the referent or have separate masculine and feminine forms following one of a half-dozen patterns. (This is no Slovak, a single feminine suffix would be much too simple.) Many are formed from other words by productive or long-fossilized but still recognized rules. None can be gender-neutral.
Sounds indeed like degendering po-russki would be likely to follow, rather than lead, any underlying societal/political change.
I am somewhat surprised to see that, in the Old Country, "singular they" is becoming acceptable, well before the adoption (should it ever be) of an Equal Rights Amendment; back in the 1970s, I had expected these changes would proceed in the opposite order.
1. All people shall be equal before the law and court.
2. The State shall guarantee the equality of rights and freedoms of man and citizen, regardless of sex, race, nationality, language, origin, property and official status, place of residence, religion, convictions, membership of public associations, and also of other circumstances. All forms of limitations of human rights on social, racial, national, linguistic or religious grounds shall be banned.
3. Man and woman shall enjoy equal rights and freedoms and have equal possibilities to exercise them.
NB. not that Единая Россия necessarily strongly upholds the principles of this article?)
cf https://avatars.dzeninfra.ru/get-zen_doc/5233669/pub_60d5970...