Reports to the first international of Socialist Women - German Working Women
 |
| Ztkin and Kollontai |
Stuttgart on Saturday 17 August 1907, at 9 a. m. in the Liederhalle.
Report of the Social Democratic Women of Germany to the International Conference of Socialist Women and the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart 1907.
The socialist women's movement of Germany is fully persuaded that the woman's question only forms a part of the social question, and can only be solved with the abolition of the capitalist and the inauguration of the socialist system. The realization of the demands of the champions of woman's rights will not even settle the question for the bourgeois women because it cannot prevent new sources of antagonism and conflict arising in place of the old antagonisms between men and women in the bourgeois classes. Still less does it assure to the women of the working class who form the great majority of the people their complete social and human emancipation.
As a worker the proletariat woman suffers most, not from the privileged position of the male sex, but from the exploitation and power of the capitalist classes; an exploitation and a power which have their roots in the nature of capitalism. Whether she delivers her tribute as a wage slave direct to the capitalist and daily experiences in her own person the weight of capitalist exploitation, or whether she, as wife feels the burden of exploitation to which her husband must submit, the position which is created for the working class through the capitalist system is always 1;ha,t which has the decisive influence on their happiness or mcy. And this situation deprives them of the possibility of a free and harmonious development and exercise of the gifts of a body and soul which nature has bestowed on them. The proletarian woman, who desires social and human freedom must consequently fight against cause of her position the against the capitalist system.
The immediate aim of this, her struggle, is the improvement of the present through the setting of limits to the capitalist exploitation of the proletariat in general, but specially against the exploitation of the proletariat women, because in the person of the mother the child is in greater degree injured than through the father and thus not only the present generation but also the coming generation and the future of the class are brought in question. And the fight for labour protection and the right of the workers under the capitalist system have besides that an importance which reaches far over the present into the future. In that it raises the masses in the economic, physical, intellectual and moral sense of the word, it raises their power and ability to fight for their aim, the abolition of the bourgeois class rule and the capitalist system. The means to that is the conquest of political power by the proletariat. The proletariat woman has an equal 'interest with the men in forcing reforms from the capitalist society and eventually abolishing it. She suffers just as the man of her class, nay, not seldom, even more bitterly than he from the evils which are the inevitable result of capitalism.
Only through the struggle of all the exploited, without distinction of sex, can she win her full humanity. She must consequently strive to win her emancipation fight in the great historical fight which is being fought by exploited labour against the capitalist exploiter. The necessary condition of success in this struggle is that the proletariat sho_uld awake to class consciousness and without distinction of employment, Sex, nation or race come together guided by one idea and one will, viz the attainment of the socialist goal.
But in order to fight the fight of their class against capitalism without hindrance and with all energy the proletariat woman is specially in need of the recognition of her social and political right as woman. The complete recognition of the equal rights of men and women is not for her as it is for the bourgeois woman the aim of her endeavours. It is for her only a means to an end viz to fight and destroy the capitalist system. For her no reform of the present society in favour of the female Sex can suffice, she must demand the revolution of the bourgeois system, which together with the social chains of the proletariat, of the bourgeois system, at the same time breaks the hardest of her own chains, which with the setting up of the socialist society brings to her in common with all humanity the conditions of a complete human existence. In harmony With these views the Socialist Women's movement of Germany looks on it as their most important duty to bring Socialism to the female proletariat, to stir up and educate the women of the working classes in town and country, to band them together and to lead them as convinced Socialists to fight against the capitalist order of society. They consequently continually guide their endeavours to enrolling larger numbers and ever and ever better educated proletariat women as fellow fighters of the revolutionary Labour movement. All those duties which must always fall to the various branches of the socialist labour movement they regard as their duty, all questions which move its external and inner life are questions which excite their interest and activity.
What they look on as their special duty is to find ways an d means to bring these duties and questions home to the understanding of the mass of the proletariat women and to educate them to conscious work on them. In short, the Socialist Women's movement of Germany is · in its innermost being only a part of the general socialist labour movement. In their own interest while maintaining in the most thorough community of aims and methods (with the Labour movement) and remaining continually in feeling with it they pursue their own work in their own special fields viz the enlightenment and organization of the female proletariat for the class war, they take however a part in the general labour movement. From what has been said farther above it is clear that the German women comrades with the same energy and earnestness with which they work for reforms in favour of the proletariat also work for reforms which serve the cause of the emancipation of the female Sex. In the contre of such demands is naturally the demand for the complete recognition of the political equality of the sexes which finds its expression in a right of forming associations and holding meetings without hindrance and in the active and passive suffrage for women.
Our Socialist Women's movement has always from the very beginning fought with all its might for the fullest rights of citizenship for the entire female Sex. It has in this respect left the German Bourgeois Women's movement far behind, which fights today neither united and solid, nor with full strength even for the Woman's vote as such, to say nothing of the universal Woman's Suffrage, less than this not even the Radical wing of the "Woman's Rights" movement has tahen adult suffrage in its programme.
Their principles determine the attitude of women comrades as well to the revolutionary Labour movement as to the Bourgeois Woman's movement. The Proletariat Women are bound to the Proletariat men by the bonds of a most complete solidarity of interests, they are separated from the bourgeois women by an insuperable barrier of opposing class. interests and the respective position of the two classes. Just as the socialist Woman's movement on the one hand is joined in consequence through the community of · aim and methods with the revolutionary labour movement, so is is sharply divided off on the other side from the bourgeois woman's movement. The latter is an outspoken bourgeois reform movement which certainly would like to reform capitalist society in favour of the female sex but takes very good care not to endanger the power of exploitation and the ruling position enjoyed by the propertied classes. The reforms for which they aim can in consequence abolish neither the economic nor the social and political oppression of the vast majority of the female sex by the propertied and possessing classes. The Socialist Woman's movement on the other hand forms a part of the proletariat revolutionary movement. Its aim is the social revolution , suppression of bourgeois society even the recognition of the equality of the sexes as well as other reforms demanded by them as well as the bourgeois Woman's movement, they desire as a means to the end that they may fight the capitalist system and uproot it, while the bourgeois women want to support and maintain it. Now it might be thought possible that in spite of that, in the struggle for the reforms which come here into account a cooperation for special purposes might be possible between the bourgeois and the socialist woman's movement, that the two might march in separate columns and get - side by side. But that is made impossible by the half and half nature of the demands put forward by the woman's movement and the weakness with which they defend them. Such a cooperation would only be possible at the price that the socialist women's movement should go backwards instead of forwards that they should reduce their demands and deprive their representatives of the revolutionary force and decision which the proletariat class struggle confers on them. The women comrades reject a proposal of that kind most decidedly. They think, feel and act as convinced social democratic women and not as women.
The Social Democratic Party and the free trade unions which take their stand on the class war have opened their ranks to women and accept them as fully qualified members and fellow fighters. Scarcely had the socialist law fallen than the free trade unions carried through au alteration of their statutes which made 'it possible for working women of the individual trades to unite with the male co-workers in the same branch. The General Com mission of the Trade Unions as well as the individual Trade Societies have spared neither trouble nor sacrifice to enlighten the working women on their interests and to organise them. Apart from the agitation in speech conversation and writing which they support for this purpose, the trade unions have special regard to the interests of the women in the constitution of their various funds for the support of their members. The General Commission has set up in Berlin a woman secretaryship which is occupied by a woman comrade with a fixed salary and a secure position which does most valuable work. The Social Democratic Party has luckily granted to women in its Organisation Statutes equal rights of membership. And was even more difficult for them than the trade unions to enroll the women. The state of the law in most of the German Federal States, and especially the greatest of them, Prussia, expressly forbids the women to form political unions or to be members of such unions. Practice and continual warfare with the authorities has nevertheless shewn us how to find forms to allow women if not.:to join the local organizations at least to belong to the party as members and as such to take an equal part in its decisions and to cooperate in its work. The Party Executive and also the individual party organizations have a special effort to promote the socialist women's movement in its internal and external development. The comrades have to thank the party for the organ which they have enjoyed for 16 years, with the aid of their moral and material support they were able to build up the system of confidential agents at whose head stands a paid agent for the whole of Germany.
Because the practice shewed that despite all inner unity with the general socialist movement our woman's movement needs, in order 'to fulfil its task with success, its own special organs and a certain independence and freedom of movement. The reason is not only to be looked for in the reactionary legislation in the greater part of the German Empire but also in the special character of the work which fell to the women comrades. Were they to bring socialism to the mass of the working women, they were obliged to take stock of their political backwardness, their mental peculiarities, their two fold burden of duty in the home and in the factory, in short all the special factors of their existence, their work their thought and feeling. Accordingly they had to choose quite other methods and look for other points of contact than the men comrades in their work of enlightenment and orga nization among the male proletariat. The law of the necessary division of labour and other reasons of a more practical character brought it about that despite the fixed nature of their membership of the general movement the socialist women as far as their organization and work is concerned yet enjoy a certain independence and possess their own organs.
The political organization of the proletariat women of Germany has been most materially influenced by the reactionary laws on public meetings and the right of association and still suffers from the same. In Germany as we have already said there is no unified right of association and meeting for women to say nothing of a "free" law. In Wurtemberg, Hessen, Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, the kingdom of Saxony, Baden, Oldenburg and Weimar-Eisenach, the women are allowed by law to found political associations and join such as members. This right is taken good advantage of by comrades. The women who are won in these states for the party join the organization of the men. In other German states the women are not allowed this right. In the largest of the German States Prussia, as well as in Bavaria , Anhalt, Brnnswich, Reuss older and younger line, Lippe etc., women dare not join the political associations. Commissions in these States consisting of 5 or 7 women comrades have often been declared by the Public Prosecutor to be Associations and punished accordingly. A way out of this difficulty was found in the appointment of individual women comrades as confidential agents to carry on the agitation. That at first was only however done in a few cases.
Not till after the Congress of Gotha 1896 where comrade Zetkin read a paper dealing from the standpoint of our principles with the question of the Essence and Aims of the socialist woman's movement and shewed the necessity of systematic agitation among the female proletariat did the congress recommend to the comrades "Jn all places so far as possible confidential agents for women should be elected in public meeting. The duty of such agents must be to enlighten the women in political and trade union matters, to rouse and strengthen their class consciousness, and to agitate with these aims in view." The system of confidential agents has been a success. Comrades male and female took great pains to find in various localities suitable women for the job. A centralization of these agents for the entire Empire was set up in 1900 and a central agency was appointed. This agent has got the duty to work with a view of carrying on a united and vigorous agitation among the women. She has the special task to open the way for a systematic work of agitation and organization of all kinds by woman comrades in such localities where the women have not yet been aroused to class consciousness and remain without understanding for the emancipation of their sex and class. She has further to arrange that the fight for those demands which at the moment either for the proletariat in general or the women proletariat in particular have been forced into the foreground shall be unitary in character. Till the year 1904: the work was done by the central office. The extension however which had been made by agitation and organization made it necessary that from then on the agent should give her full time to the work. Since that year the agent has been paid. In 1906 in consequence of increased work she got an assistant with whom she works in the same office. The number of agents in the service of the socialist women's movement in the various parts of Germany amounts to 407.
The number of women which are organized in common with the men amounts to 10500. In these places the women's agents are usually at the same time members of the executive committee of the Social democratic Union. They consult the comrades and develope in agreement with them the necessary agitation for the enlightenment of the indifferent female proletariat.
The Congress at Jena in 1905 added to the organization Statutes of the Party a clause to enable the confidential agent to take voluntary contributions from women in return for special stamps issued by the association. In Prussia as in other states where women are not allowed to organize a way is thus opened to them to testify their membership of the Social-Democratic-Party. In 97 places 8751 women comrades have given voluntary contributions in the short period which has elapsed since the novelty was introduced - a great Success.
The number of the unpolitical educational unions has continually increased. Their number new amounts to a membership of 10302. That is so much the more remarkable because the authorities were most hostile to these. In Rhineland and Westphalia the women were expelled without any legal right, association meetings were dissolved, members of the executive were prosecuted and associations were closed by order of the police. That all howewer did n!'" prevent female comrades from finding ever and ever new ways tb found and to propagate organizations. In the associations chiefly scientific lectures and artistic entertainments (concerts and recitations) are held; they encourage also a sisterly feeling between the members.
In addition to the political enlightenment the work of getting
members into the unions has not been neglected. Women comrades who are active in speaking and in the work of organization work with equal energy for the political as for the trade union orga nization.
In the work of personal propaganda, attending meeting of workers belonging to particular shops and other kinds of trade union work they take a part, acquire new members, and educate the old. The number of women members of the 34 national trade unions numbered 1905 74 411, it is now risen to over 100 000, according to the last published figures.
Int he year 1905 from the 74 411 women members there are in the textile workers union 20 598, tobacco workers 11422, metal workers 9097, bookbinders 6261, factory workers 5836, compositors assistants
3773, shoemakers 3092, laundry workers 2492, shop assistants 2372, tailors 2085, party cooks 1307, wood workers 1207, transport workers 1070, hatmakers 873, porcelain workers 775, municipal workers 406, portfolio makers 299, glass workers 249, furrier 221, cigar sorters 206, saddlers 150, brewery workers 133, flower workers 115, paperhangers 90, Gilders 74:, glovemakers 4:6, licensed victuallers assistants 41, painters 41, warehouse workers 35, bakers 31, office workers 27, umbrella makers 24, leather workers 12, butchers S. In the trade union women's Secretary's Office to which we have referred which has been in existence for some years in Berlin, there work women who have been for many years active in the trade union movement. Their work consists in carrying on the work of agitation among the women with all due consideration for the historical and economical hindrances which stand in the way. The trade papers and committees in which women men and work together, have educated the women members of the trade unions to the capable co-workers and fellow fighters.
The socialist woman's movement of Germany was not born ready made either as respects its theory nor its organization. Before the end of the sixties in the last century there were vigorous movements in Saxony to enrole the proletariat women in the organization of the working classes and their struggles. The efforts were crowed with success. These first attempts to win the women as co-workers in the movement must be ascribed to the insights and influence of the old International. It distinguished between the fruitful, creative historical tendency of the industrial work of women and the repulsive by form weighed down as it was by poverty and misery in which it was carried through under capitalism. The Knowledge of this fact had fixed when the german workers had only begun to come together as a class their attitude towards woman's labour, and had shown them how necessary it was to call the women workers into the class war.
The endeavour to make of the women of the working people an organized force with a view of guarding their proletariat class interests took its :first start in the Saxon Textile Industry. Its most prominent member was the International Trade Cooperative Society of the Factory and Hand Workers with an office in Crimmitschau. It was the result of no mere chance. It sprang from the historical conditions. The Saxon Textile Industry was in a transition stage from handwork to manufacturing on a large scale. The economic development had here prepared the soil on which the seed of the ideas sown by the International could rapidly spread. The movement got np by the International among the workers of the "Erz - Ge birge" saw only the female slaves of capitalism who like the men were being exploited and must be enrolled in the ranks of the proletariat fighters.
On 28 February 1869 comrade Motteler, who was among the most prominent leaders of this movement spoke out with as clearness and certainty which would be almost worthy of a programme on woman and her position in the home and public life. He said.
,,We demand for the women a freedom, that has its root in a rational order of things, to make her living and also to freely develope her capacities as well for the home life as for a public life. Not as domestic slaves confined to the kitchen and parlour, not deprived of all rights outside the home. The ideal of the emancipation of the female sex can only be realized in a socialist society of free workers. Hence comes the fight against the present social conditions, deeply branded as there are by the direst misery. " In Crimmitschau on february 10 1869 in connection with the Spinner and weaver cooperative society was founded by 300 comrades an International Trades Cooperative Society of Factory and Hand Workers. To the committee which was set up there were added two women comrades, Frau Wilhelmina Weber and Fran Peschel. Out of the knowledge that .the woman proletariat is at the same time in need of protection against capitalism and likewise confronts it as and opponent arose the endeavour to enrole the women in the International Trades Cooperative Society as equal and fully qualified members with similar rights and duties to the men. At the first General Meeting in Crimmitschau on 9, 10 and 11 july 1870 Wilhelm Stolle, one of our old guard, who remains a fighter even to day, was able to say that the organization had 6000 to 7000 mem hers, including 1000 to 1200 women. According to our veteran Motteler a not inconsiderable number of women hat later joined the parent society and what is much more in a full knowedge of its aims and endeavours.
Under the weight of the economic and political consequences of the Franco German War and by reason of the unheard of persecutions of the government the International Trade Cooperative Society fell to pieces and with it the first attempt to range the women workers as an organized body in the ranks of the fighting forces of the proletariat. This attempt was quite free of any ingredients of the Bourgeois "Womans Rights" theories.
The same cannot be said of the first Berlin attempts which pursued the same aim. They also a began early in the sixties of last century. In the year 1869 was founded the first women's workers Union by proletariat women and led by a woman comrade who is still in our ranks comrade Stagemann. That was a sign that the Berlin Working women were awaking to class consciousness and were being forced to come together. The first steps of the socialist woman's movement were very laborious. They were hindered not only by the difficulties which lay in the nature of the business, that is the difficulty of organizing the proletariat by reason of their two fold position as exploited and oppressed but also because of the special difficulties imposed by the Prussian Law of Association which is employed against them with the utmost severity and interpreted with all the ingenuity of legal casuistry. This reached its height under the Anti-Socialist Law. The authorities played false with the organizations which Berlin women comrades had started and dissolved them, they condemned their leaders, they harried their members, they tried to make impossible all and every form of public activity for the women comrades and to prevent them either holding or visiting public meetings. And yet ever and ever in the place of the organizations which had been broken up were new ones founded and the more did the numbers of the women comrades grow and at the same time also the knowledge of socialism among those who despite all hindrances took part in the struggles of their class. The leaders of the movement at that time-the women comrades Guillaume-Schack and Hofman, both of whom sprang from bourgeois and remained true to our colours in that hard time, the comrades Ihrer, Wabnitz and Stigeman with the nameless other women whose work was of the greatest help and though it remains unrecorded yet was of inestimable value, these all have rendered eminent service in the cause of the female proletariat and of Socialism. Of the actions undertaken by the young Berlin movement is especially worthy of notice that against the threatened introduction of a tax on sewing cottons which would have seriously affected the interests of the poor sewing women. In Hamburg, in Offenbach and other towns little by little there was arising a woman's socialist movement. As early as the seventies attempts had been made in various places to organize the sewing women, the women book binders, the laundresses, and other women workers, yet the unions were mostly local in character. Nevertheless it came about in the course of time that the various unions, got in touch with each other and especially with the Berlin women's socialist movement, which more and more took the lead intel lectually, and became so far as the circumstances permitted the centre of the movement which was to make of the women proletariat co-fighters in the cause of the proletariat in his struggle for emancipation. But as we have already hinted the youthful movement was not quite clear O:\J. the principles of the socialist movement but was much under the influence of the champions of bourgeois woman's rights. That was evident especially in their attitude to the question of a legal protection of woman's labour. In the year 1890 the women comrades protested against a prohibition of woman's work in such trades as were especially detrimental to the organism of the woman. And even up to the International Socialist Congress in Zurich 1893 prominent leaders of the women's socialist movement combatted all special protective legislation for women. An official break with the ideas of the champions of woman's rights, to whose influence that was due came first at the International Socialist Congress in Zurich 1893. As the representative of the German women comrades comrade Zetkin moved the following resolution which was accepted.
Considering that the Bourgeois Woman's movement rejects all special legislation for the protection of women as an interference with the rights of woman and her equality with man, that with that it ignores the character of our present day society which rests on the exploitation of the working class, women as well as men by the capitalist class, and on the other fails to recognise the special rok which has fallen to women through the differentiation of the sexes, namely their for the future so highly important role as mother of children, the International Congress of Zurich declares:
It is the duty of the Labour Representatives in all countries to demand with all their power the passing of the following legal measures for the efficient protection of women workers:
1. Introduction of a legal maximum eight hours day for women and a six hour day for girls under 18 years.
2. Fixing an uninterrupted repose once a week of 36 hours.
3. Prohibition of night Work.
4. Prohibition of woman's work in all employments which are detrimental to health.
5. Prohibition of work by women with child, two weeks before and four weeks after child birth.
6. Appointment of Women Factory Inspectors in sufficient numbers in all the Industries where women are employed.
7. Application of the above measures to all women who work in factories work shops, or shops, in the home industries or as agricultural women workers.
The movement has been above all educated on the principles of Socialism by the "Gleichheit" (Equality) - the organ of the German Socialist Women - which was founded in 1892 thanks to the far sightedness and support of comrade Dietz and took the place of the "Woman Worker " which comrade Ihrer had edited.
The "Gleichheit" has made a study of the woman's movement in various directions starting out from and remaining consistent to the principles of the historical materialism. It has thus laid down a foundation of principle for the socialist woman's movement and the lines its tactic should follow. For many years the ,, Gleich heit" had only a very small circulation. Often enough derided when it appeared privately, it pursued the aim which it had set itself. The Editor Comrade Zetkin did not allow herself to be led away by the cry that the paper was too much above the peoples com prehension it ought to be brought down to a tower level. It was difficult to accustom women to serious reading. In the years when the influence of the ,, Gleichheit" did not shew itself in outside successes, it educated in the theory of Socialism a staff of splendid women agitators in word and writing who had arisen from the ranks of the female proletariat and who now form the strength of our movement and are the guarantee of its farther development. To day the "Gleichheit" has 70 000 subscribers in all parts of the Empire, especially many thousands in Catholic parts. The readers of the ,, Gleichlieit" must for the greater part be recognized as comrades. In January 1906 the size of the ,, Gleichheit" was increased and its contents increased by a special column intended for lighter entertainment as well as by supplement in every alternate number for the children and in every other alternale number for the mothers and housewives. Of these two supplements the first has the duly to awake by means of poems, stories etc., in the children a sense of justice, a love of treeth, freedom and their fellows and introduce them in the most suitable manner into the world of socialist feeling and thought. The success is attained that many thousands of children await this supplement with pleasure and read it eagerly. For mothers and housewives are given educational articles on Domestic Economy, Health, Education of children so that they may become more capable of educating their children in a socialist sense. The ,, Gleichheit" always finally directs its energy to drawing contributors out of the ranks. No Party paper has had such a success in this respect as it. To many talents the opportunity is thus given of developing themselves and the number of contributors from the ranks of the female proletariat grows continually.
The theoretical clearness of the Socialist Woman's movement has brought it about that in the ranks of the leading women comrades the necessity of educating the mass of the women workers has long been advocated with zeal and indeed of making of the women workers not merely sentimental socialists but socialists with the understanding. The Socialist Woman's movement consequently makes a great point to make the women acquainted with the Socialist programme. For the purpose of theoretical education reading and discussion societies were started in about 120 places. In groups of 20 to 35 persons the Social Democratic Programme is read and discussed. The leader of the discussion whether man or woman must understand how to bring the women through clear explanation and well put questions to a clear understanding and expression of their ideas. The success of the understaking is gratifying. A great number of women has won through it knowledge and capacities which they were able to employ in meetings and public discussions.
In accordance with our principles the participation of women comrades in political life has always been lively. In all political actions undertaken by the proletariat the women take part. Both in entertainments got ap by comrades in meetings, in the distribution of pamphlets as in the other necessary work the women comrades take their part. They fight alongside of comrades for freedom of meeting and association, for adult suffrage, for reform of education and school, for a proper labour protection, for provision for mothers and children. They fight especially against militarism and the Colonial Policy and take a most lively part in the election fights. In short the women comrades take a part in all the action and work of the party, not least are they unceasingly active as speakers for it. Also in the educational movements of the fighting proletariat the women play an active part. Among the many thousand members of the ,, Free Dramatic Union" certainly the half are women and otherwise the comrades crowd into all arrangements which are to serve for the improvement and deepening of the education.
In the trade union struggles also the women fight loyally side by side. As working women they stand at the side of their of their men fellow workers, they know full well that the reverse often happens, and that every victory of the common cause comes to the good of both. But still in other matters the women then their feeling of proletariat solidarity and duty. Thus during the Boycott which the organized tailors and tailoresses of Berlin decreed on certain businesses "in Berlin who refused to comply with the demand to erect work shops, they stuch to their duty and avoided making their purchases from such firms. Thus a large number of big were compelled to recognize the claim of the organized tailors. During this years baker's strike in Berlin, which aimed at getting for the bakers assistants at least 13 free days and nights and to secure through the abolition of living in, the possibility for them to found a family of their own, the women helped actively. They got up in Greater Berlin 28 meetings and as speakers spoke for the demands of the Baker's assistants, collected money and aided at making the strike a success by means of the boycott. In cooperation with the trade unions the women comrades in many
places have founded committees which had for duty to tell the Factory Inspector of cases where employers broke the law. This institution has had the effect of getting rid of many abuses and helping the movement. The attention of women comrades has been much drawn to the exploitation of child labour. In various meetings they contended for a sufficient protection for children. In many towns Child protection committees were appointed which had for duty to denounce breaches of te law for the protection of children. Thus many a child ours health and life to the activity of the comrades.
Daring last year the social political Women's movement began to enlighten in systematic manner and organize a specially oppressed and exploited class of female wage slaves - the domestic servants. In 10 places there exist already organizations of the same, which have already 5000 members. The work of this association has abolished many a remnant of the mediaeval .Gesindeordnung" to which the domestic servants are she subject, and has made for them better conditions of life and service.
 |
| Baader |
Ottilie Baader
.jpg)
