Movements for the Emancipation of Women: Three Essays, Clara Zetkin - 3
The communist women’s movement has a short but very momentous history. It is growing and playing its role in the most important epoch in the history of mankind. In the period of the world proletarian revolution which began with Red October in 1917, all economic and social barriers between human beings are being torn down and new forms of social life are being created, thanks to the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production and the materialisation of Communism as a social order. This violent upheaval of society is an imperative condition for a new and higher form of relationship between man and woman, parents and children, and subsequently for the complete freedom and equality of the whole of womankind. The communist women’s movement shall and is consciously going to serve this great purpose. People who have been oppressed and exploited by capitalism the world over must take it upon themselves to fulfil this end. They will become revolutionary militants under the leadership of the class-conscious proletariat. The activity of communist women is directed to arousing those broad masses of working women who have been robbed and trampled upon by the class supremacy of the big capitalists; it also has the objective of awakening women from all social strata who have been enchained by the sex-supremacy of men so that they become comrades-in-arms for this work of emancipation. The aspirations and activities of the doubly enslaved must be guided by the understanding that the world revolution is the only path to freedom.
The communist women’s movement continues on a higher level of historical and theoretical knowledge and practical work the task that the social democratic women’s movement had willingly undertaken to accomplish in the spirit of Marxism but had later betrayed. But in their approach towards the social order, economy and state of bourgeois society an unbridgeable antagonism yawned between the two movements. The question that fundamentally and tactically divided the two movements was whether the complete emancipation of women was to be achieved by the reform of bourgeois society or by thoroughgoing revolution. Having become bourgeois and, hence, anti-revolutionary, the social democratic women’s movement shrank back from understanding the clear and unambiguous lessons of the events that had taken place since 1914. In contrast, the communist women’s movement drew valuable conclusions, in theory and in practice, from the imperialist world War, the Russian Revolution and subsequent historical events. It was guided by a faithful adherence to the historical understanding of revolutionary Marxism and its consistent and vigorous Leninist application to the problems and tasks of the process of social development.
The starting point of the organised communist women’s movement was the founding congress of the Third International held at Moscow in March 1919. The relationship of this world proletarian organisation to the communist women’s movement reflected the advance in historical maturity of the social development for proletarian revolution in objective and subjective terms. The founding congress of the Third International, unlike that of the Second International, was not content with merely applauding the demand for equal rights for women and their participation in the ranks of the struggling proletariat. Foreign communist women could not participate in the conference because of the extraordinary difficulties of communication existing at that time with the Soviet Union. The First Congress of the Communist International adopted an unanimous resolution, moved by the Russian comrades, which acknowledged the total equality of women and recognised their significance as an indispensable force of the revolution. The Communist International accepted that it can fulfil the tasks before it and ensure the final victory of the world proletariat and the complete abolition of the capitalist system only with the help of the closely interlinked collective struggle of men and women of the working class. The dictatorship of the proletariat can only be realised and assured through the alert and active participation of working class women.” 1
The spirit of this resolution remained decisive for the development, expansion and influence of the communist women’s movement, as well as for its relationship to the Communist International and its national sections. The Second International had been ideologically and organisationally loosely structured and its commitment and leadership did not go beyond resolutions and demonstrations. The social democratic women’s movement developed within its framework though not under its leadership. The Third International learnt from the events of the imperialist era. It also learnt from the shortcomings, the final ignominious (sic.) failure and the betrayal of its predecessor. In contrast, the Communist International was ideologically and organisationally a tightly organised body. The communist women’s movement expanded and worked not only within the framework of the Third International, but also inseparable association with it and under its leadership. As a great world organisation of the stormily advancing proletariat, it, too, based its work and struggles on t: theory of historical materialism, further developed al raised to organised practice by Lenin, as well as on t: experiences and principles of the Russian Revolution. The leading principles and aims of the communist women’s movement necessitated the adoption of common international principles of organisation and action so that women workers of hand and brain together with their class brothers could fulfil and attain their historical significance as forces, that Revolution which would bring them freedom and equal rights.
International women’s conferences and deliberation held in connection with the World Congresses of the Communist International or the plenary sessions of its Executive Committee successfully fulfilled the above objectives. Women comrades naturally participated in a full manner in the discussions and voting on the reports al resolutions at these special conferences. The Second International Conference of Communist Women which was held in Moscow in 1921 gave a fundamental orientation to the principles, tactics and organisation of the communist women’s movement. It discussed and took decisions upon the guidelines for the international communist women’s movement which showed how clearly different it was not only from the suffragettes, but also from bourgeois reformist social democracy and its women’s movement. The guiding principle were based on the observation that private property was the ultimate cause of sex and class slavery and that only the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production and its transformation into social ownership could ensure total liberty for women. Such a far-reaching and fundamental upheaval of the social order had to be collective action of the propertyless and those who owned very little property, regardless of the sex to which they might belong. Without a revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat there could be no real and total emancipation of women; without the participation of women, capitalism could not be smashed and there could not emerge a new socialist order.
The guiding principles conclusively pointed out that the pre-condition for emancipation through communism was revolution, in which the fighting and triumphant proletariat established its dictatorship as the path leading to the objective of social transformation. The guidelines shred to pieces the deceitful and pernicious illusion that changed laws favouring equality of women, that social reforms improving the situation of the proletariat, that bourgeois dictatorship instead of proletarian dictatorship, were capable of bringing freedom and equality. The guiding principles explained that reforms of any kind were and remained merely patchwork solutions in an exploitative and enslaving bourgeois society they offered no solution to the women’s question or to the social question. After fundamentally rejecting reforms as being the “ultimate aims” of the communist women’s movement, they formulated a series of demands which were suited to allay to some extent the burning day-to-day issues in the lives of working women, which served as points of contact for communist educative and organisational work among these strata. They served to direct the understanding, will and determination of enlightened, people beyond day-to-day and partial demands, towards the seizure of power by the proletariat and the upheaval of society. Further, they served to strengthen and enhance their fighting ability for the revolution.
The guiding principles outrightly rejected the idea of organising communist women separately. They were to join the communist party of their country on an equal basis, as members with the same rights and obligations; women workers and female professionals had to belong to the unions of their male professional comrades. In view of certain social conditions of existence and the backwardness and inability of many men and women to comprehend the necessity and superiority of collective organisation, the communist party did require especial organs which with time would render themselves superfluous through their successful work. How these organs were composed - preferably of male and female comrades - was a question of expediency. The essential tenet of the international communist women’s movement was that systematically organised and energetic work had to be conducted by communist parties in all countries amongst proletarian and working women aimed at mobilising them en masse against capitalism and the bourgeois order.
The Third World Congress of the Communist International confirmed these guiding principles. In international conferences and deliberations of organised communist women, two of which were held in Berlin and the rest in Moscow, activity in important spheres of party work in trade unions, co-operatives and in the sphere of party education was analysed on the basis of these principles. Besides this, these conferences exhaustively worked to systematically carry out delegate meetings and conferences of women and women workers. This was a valuable means to win over working women outside the circle of the communist party to its campaigns and at the same time to educate them in social and community work. In the same way they took a stand on work in non-party mass organisations, especially in women’s organisations sympathetic to the party. National conventions of communist women encouraged the movement in the same way, naturally in conjunction with the communist party of the country. Two international women’s secretariats - one in Berlin for the West and the other in Moscow for the East -had been working since 1921 to promote strong links of the communist women’s movement in individual countries with one another and with the leadership of the Communist International. After the Fifth World Congress they united to form the women’s section of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. This had its headquarters in Moscow and it integrated all sections and organs of the proletarian world organisation. It acted as a model for the leadership of the national sections of the Communist International.
The adoption of common principles with regard to the fundamental approach and organisation of the communist women’s movement strengthened international unity of action and gave it momentum and staying power. In 1921 the appeal of leading women communists to help Soviet Russia, which was then suffering from famine, aroused innumerable women in capitalist countries to give self-sacrificing help and energetic support. International Communist Women’s Day on March 8 each year united growing numbers of developing revolutionary women in the Soviet Union and in capitalist, colonial and semi-colonial countries. It made them aware of their inextricable ties of international solidarity with one another and with their brothers for the realisation of communism. Women stood in the foremost ranks ready to work with all their might for the revolutionary cause and for their own emancipation whenever the national sections of the Third International called upon the proletarian masses and the workers of all strata to wage a consistent and resolute struggle against the danger of an imperialist war: against bourgeois social democratic or anti-Bolshevist smear campaigns which justified the anti-Soviet policy of economic strangulation of the first state of proletarian dictatorship and prepared for military assaults by imperialist powers against it.
As a result of their participation in the struggles of their brothers and because of their heroism and martyrdom, working women have secured for themselves a place in history which is one of great revolutionary value; in the uprisings of the peoples of Bulgaria, Rumania, and Yugoslavia who have been sucked dry and are socially and nationally underprivileged; in the struggle of industrial, rural and intellectual workers against fascism and terror in Italy, Poland and other countries; in the gigantic struggle of the miners in Great Britain; in the revolutionary assaults of workers, peasants, petty-bourgeoisie and intellectuals against national and social slavery in China, India, Indonesia, Indo-China, South-West Africa and other regions of imperialist plundering; in strikes and lock-outs of every kind and in every place in which women workers and wives of workers very often set an example; in unrelenting debates on socio-political measures, political and cultural rights of the poor and with regard to many other issues. The enthusiasm and determination of women to fight was heightened by consciousness of the ties of international solidarity whenever and wherever they actively intervened in events, even when this could not be manifested through actions. The revolutionary seeds of the ideas of the communist women’s movement are germinating and throwing up their shoots.
The women comrades who were organised in the Soviet Union provided the communist women’s movement with strong and well-trained battalions, indeed, a complete national army. What they gave was truly much and far more valuable than their mere numerical strength and their position of power as equals in the state of the proletarian dictatorship under the leadership of the Russian Communist Party; for, what they brought was the rich treasure-trove of their experiences as revolutionary fighters in the period of seizure and declaration of state power by the proletariat, as co-workers in the period of the exercise of power for socialist construction, and as partners in the task of awakening and educating the working women of the proletarian and peasant masses. Of course these experiences did not imply a thoughtless and slavish imitation in different historical circumstances by the communist women’s movement outside the Soviet Union, but they did offer a wealth of fruitful impulses and guidelines. The brilliant personal examples of the freedom fighters of Red October, the blockade period, the intervention and civil war and the heroic example of socialist construction of that time were an inexhaustible spring of revolutionary strength and inspiration for the international communist women’s movement. The communist women of all the non-Soviet countries could learn from them how one died for the revolution and - what was far more difficult - how one lived for the revolution.
Together with the Third International the communist women’s movement spread throughout the world. It lived and took effect not only in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, the countries of Central and South America, South Africa and Australia, but also revolutionised masses of women in the Near and Far East; women, who, bonded by thousands of years of economic and social life-forms, were the most oppressed of all female slaves. To be sure, the beginning of capitalist trade and vigorous capitalist production in some of these countries had consequently led to the emergence of a bourgeois women’s movement which had achieved remarkable success. However, even disregarding the bourgeois character and aims of this movement, it had been unable to engage in arousing and awakening the people and had thus failed to penetrate to the depths of society. It had therefore lacked the impetus of more extensive movements as well as the highest of objectives. The goal had been pointed out and the path forward shown by the shining Soviet star. There emerged in the countries of the Orient, in connection with the communist parties, a communist women’s movement which, particularly in China, was transforming the masses of proletarian and peasant women as well as innumerable educated and petty-bourgeois women into fearless revolutionary fighters. A women’s conference for the province of Hubei was convened in 1927 on International Communist Women’s Day. It introduced its programme of action with the following declaration: “The Revolution is the only path for the emancipation of women”.
The development and achievements of the communist women’s movement were creditable. Success should not become intoxicating; rather it puts us under obligation. It would be unworthy of communism if the organised pioneering women fighters were to measure their work amongst the masses of proletarian and working women against what has been achieved and - not against the magnitude and importance of the tasks that the period of declining world capitalism and the initiated and uninterruptedly maturing world proletarian revolution has set before them. The female and male representatives of the communist women’s movement ought not to see things as they should be, but must rather perceive them as they are in reality. Apart from its development and impact in the Soviet Union, it was still weak in both respects. In practically all of the national sections of the Communist International the central leadership and the organs under it had failed to sufficiently appreciate the necessity and value of the participation of the masses of working women in the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat and the historical reasons for this participation. Wherever imperialist capitalism rules and exploits, there the communist women’s movement came up against the power of the imperialist-capitalist economy, state and social system. In addition there existed the strong and unscrupulous competition of the bourgeois and social democratic women’s movements. The communist women’s movement is still young, and for historically comprehensible reasons, we find within it particularly evident weaknesses and mistakes on the part of the communist parties of different countries.
These and other circumstances that hinder the rapid and tremendous progress of the communist women’s movement are unable to retard it, on the contrary, they goad it on to unfold its determination and strengthen it to the highest degree. With Leninist conscientiousness it will examine with the help of dialectical materialism the conditions of its maturity and influence and, thanks to its firmly established theoretical understanding, ensure successful practical action. By learning, working and struggling, the communist women’s movement shall overcome all obstacles and difficulties which are confronting it. By virtue of its actions it will strengthen its claim to the equal importance of women as forces of revolution and communism. Of particular significance is the fact that the organised women communists overcome the mistakes and failings in their theoretical and practical approach; that they participate eagerly and intelligently in overcoming those mistakes and failings which accompany the process of development of the national sections of the leading mass parties of the revolutionary proletariat. The inspiring example of the first state of proletarian dictatorship stands before the communist women’s movement. This state had laid down the total equality of the female sex in its Constitution and ensured this equality through far-reaching mother and child care and other basic innovations. The communist women’s movement is carried and taken forward by the impact of objective forces which hasten the termination of the bourgeois social system, despite stabilisation and rationalisation under the merciless rule of imperialist monopoly capitalism. Along with the organised, revolutionary and fighting forces of the exploited masses of all states and regions under capitalist rule, the communist women’s movement also proves to be a subjective factor of upheaval and realisation of communism. It must win the masses of working women away from the anti-revolutionary bourgeois and social democratic women’s movements. The strength of numbers done that they boast of does not imply that they are a social revolutionary and liberating force. Of utmost historical importance for attaining the goal is to correctly appraise social development and summon the requisite reserves of will and deeds. Measured by these yardsticks the communist women’s movement emerges as the most superior force as compared to both of these counter-revolutionary movements, indeed, vis-a-vis all the forces of bourgeois society. This understanding, united with practical actions, shall instruct and unite the proletarian and working women around the Red banner. The triumph of revolution, which shall emancipate all of womankind, shall no less be the work of the communist women’s movement.
Note:
1. See “Protocol of the Discussions held in Moscow from March 2nd – 19th”, Hamburg, 1921, p. 194.
Three Essays, Clara Zetkin Preface
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