by Mary Dav i s

This ye a r, 2 0 1 0 , marks the

c e n t e n a ry of International

Wo m e n ’s Day and hence it

is especially import a n t .

Within the last 10-15 yearsmany thousands of womenworldwide have begun torecognise and to celebrate

International Wo m e n’s Day(IWD). It is, however,unfortunate that its origins arenot more widely known giventhat that this year we celebrateits centennial foundation andalso that its subsequent historyis truly inspirational. Althoughmany claims have been made asto the origins of IWD and the

precise date of the foundation ofits foundation, most reputablesources are agreed that 2010marks its establishment as aninternational day of sisterhoodand solidarity for workingwomen. Hence it is timely to putthe record straight if for no otherreason than the inheritors of theinternationalist tradition laid inthe 19th and 20th centuries –working class, trade union andsocialist women today – mustreclaim our own history and inso doing study it, celebrate itand be inspired by it.

The motivation for IWD camefrom two sources: the struggle ofworking class women to formtrade unions and the fight forw o m e n’s franchise. These twoissues united European womenwith their sisters in the USA. In1908 hundreds of womenw o r kers in the New York needletrades demonstrated in Ru t g e r sSquare in Manhattan’s LowerEast Side to form their ownunion and to demand the rightto vote. This historicdemonstration took place on 8March. It led, in the followingyear to the ‘uprising’ of 30,000women shirtwaist makers whichresulted in the first permanenttrade unions for women worke r sin the USA.

Meanwhile news of the heroicfight of US women worke r sreached Europe – in particularit inspired European socialistwomen who had established, onthe initiative of the Germansocialist feminist, Clara Zetkin(1857-1933), the InternationalSocialist Wo m e n’s Conference.This latter body met for the firsttime in 1907 in Stuttgartalongside one of the periodicconferences of the SecondInternational (1889-1914).

continued on back page

Communists at the TUC w o m e n’s conference March 2010

U n i t y!

Forged in struggleInternational Wo m e n’s Day1 9 1 0 - 2 0 1 0

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CRO2 1BD

by A l e x a n d ra Kollantai

Is it re a l ly necessary? Is it

not a concession to the

women of the bourge o i s

c l a s s , to the feminists and

s u f f r agettes? Is it not

harmful to the unity of the

wo r kers’ move m e n t ?

Such questions can still beheard in Russia, though they areno longer heard abroad. Lifeitself has already supplied aclear and eloquent answer.‘ Wo m e n’s Day’ is a link in thelong, solid chain of the women’ sproletarian movement. Theo rganised army of workingwomen grows with every year.Twenty years ago the tradeunions contained only smallgroups of working womenscattered here and there amongthe ranks of the workers’ party. . .Now English trade unions haveover 292,000 women members;in Germany around 200,000 arein the trade union movementand 150,000 in the worke r s ’p a r t y, and in Austria there are47,000 in the trade unions andalmost 20,000 in the party.Everywhere – in Italy, Hungary,Denmark, Sweden, Norway andSwitzerland – the women of theworking class are org a n i s i n gthemselves. The women’ ssocialist army has almost a

million members. A powerfulforce! A force that the powers ofthis world must reckon withwhen it is a question of the costof living, maternity insurance,child labour and legislation toprotect female labour.

There was a time whenworking men thought that theyalone must bear on theirshoulders the brunt of thestruggle against capital, thatthey alone must deal with the‘old world’ without the help oftheir womenfolk. However, asw o r k i n g -class women enteredthe ranks of those who sell theirl a b o u r, forced onto the labourm a r ket by need, by the fact thathusband or father isunemployed, working menbecame aware that to leavewomen behind in the ranks ofthe ‘non-c l a s s-conscious’ was todamage their cause and hold itback. The greater the number ofconscious fighters, the greaterthe chances of success. Whatlevel of consciousness ispossessed by a woman who sitsby the stove, who has no rightsin society, the state or thefamily? She has no ‘ideas’ of herown! Everything is done asordered by the father orhusband... The backwardnessand lack of rights suffered bywomen, their subjection and

U n i t y! TUC Wo m e n ’s Confe rence 20102

What isWo m e n’s

D a y ?

Extending democracyby Anita Halpin

Far too many trade union pro c e d u res perpetuate

discrimination against women and equality aspirations.

While we would not blame our founding fo refathers (and

all too few fo remothers) for this, we look fo r

e n c o u r agement when we attempt to drag structures and

p ro c e d u res into the 21st century.

Over the years, the Communist Party has supported a number ofproposals to extend TUC democracy. Most successfully, the right ofall the equality conferences, the trades council conference – andsoon the youth forum - to each bring forward a motion to theSeptember TUC.

This year motion 33 seeks to extend the democratic powers of thisw o m e n’s conference and extend the rights that will be afforded tothose sisters who delegates elect to serve on the TUC Wo m e n’ sCommittee. For some anarchic, arcane or anachronistic reason(choose any of three) there is a tradition that only General Councilmembers who are parachuted onto TUC equality committees aredeemed eligible to even seek to stand as chair of any committees.

The proposition this year – and one that we hope will not beopposed is that any sister elected to the Wo m e n’s Committee shallno be barred from being nominated, elected and serving as the chairof our committee. It would also be the hope that our sister equalitycommittees might elect to go down this same path during the year. ★Anita Halpin chairs the Communist Pa r t y. She is a lay member of theNUJ national executive council and an elected delegate to conference

indifference, are of no benefit tothe working class, and indeedare directly harmful to it. Buthow is the woman worker to bedrawn into the movement, howis she to be awoke n ?

Social-Democracy abroad didnot find the correct solutioni m m e d i a t e l y. Wo r ke r s ’o rganisations were open towomen workers, but only a fewentered. Why? Because theworking class at first did notrealise that the woman worker isthe most legally and sociallydeprived member of that class,that she has been browbeaten,intimidated, persecuted downthe centuries, and that in orderto stimulate her mind and heart,a special approach is needed,words understandable to her asa woman. The workers did notimmediately appreciate that inthis world of lack of rights andexploitation, the woman isoppressed not only as a seller ofher labour, but also as a mother,as a woman... However. whenthe workers’ socialist partyunderstood this, it boldly tookup the defence of women onboth counts as a hired worke rand as a woman, a mother.Socialists in every countrybegan to demand specialprotection for female labour,insurance for mother and child,political rights for women andthe defence of women’ si n t e r e s t s .

The more clearly the worke r s ’party perceived this secondobjective vis-a-vis womenw o r kers, the more willinglywomen joined the party, themore they appreciated that theparty is their true champion,that the working class isstruggling also for their urg e n tand exclusively female needs.Working women themselves,o rganised and conscious, havedone a great deal to elucidatethis objective. Now the mainburden of the work to attractmore working women into thesocialist movement lies with thewomen. The parties in everycountry have their own specialw o m e n’s committees,

secretariats and bureaus. Thesew o m e n’s committees conductwork among the still larg e l ynon-politically conscious femalepopulation. arouse theconsciousness of workingwomen and organise them. Theyalso examine those questionsand demands that affect womenmost closely: protection andprovision for expectant andnursing mothers, the legislativeregulation of female labour, thecampaign against prostitutionand infant mortality, the demandfor political rights for women,the improvement of housing, thecampaign against the rising costof living, etc.

Thus, as members of thep a r t y, women workers arefighting for the common classcause, while at the same timeoutlining and putting forwardthose needs and demands thatmost nearly affect themselves aswomen, housewives andmothers. The party supportsthese demands and fights forthem... The requirements ofworking women are part andparcel of the common worke r s ’c a u s e !

On ‘Wo m e n’s Day’ theo rganised demonstrate againsttheir lack of rights. But, somewill say, why this singling out ofwomen workers? Why special‘ Wo m e n’s Days’, special leafletsfor working women, meetingsand conferences of working-class women? Is this not, in thefinal analysis, a concession tothe feminists and bourg e o i ss u f f r a g e t t e s ?

Only those who do notunderstand the radicaldifference between themovement of socialist womenand bourgeois suffragettes canthink this way. What is the aimof the feminists? Their aim is toachieve the same advantages,the same power, the same rightswithin capitalist society as thosepossessed now by theirhusbands, fathers and brothers.What is the aim of the womenw o r kers? Their aim is to abolishall privileges deriving from birthor wealth. For the woman worke r

it is a matter of indifference whois the ‘master’ a man or awoman. Together with the wholeof her class, she can ease herposition as a worke r.

‘The organiseda r my of wo r k i n gwomen grows witheve ry ye a r ’

Feminists demand equalrights always and everywhere.Women workers reply: wedemand rights for every citizen,man and woman, but we are notprepared to forget that we arenot only workers and citizens,but also mothers! And asmothers, as women who givebirth to the future, we demandspecial concern for ourselvesand our children, specialprotection from the state ands o c i e t y. The feminists arestriving to acquire politicalrights. However, here too ourpaths separate.

For bourgeois women,political rights are simply ameans allowing them to maketheir way more conveniently andmore securely in a worldfounded on the exploitation ofthe working people. For womenw o r kers, political rights are astep along the rocky anddifficult path that leads to thedesired kingdom of labour.

The paths pursued by womenw o r kers and bourg e o i ssuffragettes have long sinceseparated. There is too great adifference between theobjectives that life has put

before them. There is too great acontradiction between theinterests of the woman worke rand the lady proprietress,between the servant and hermistress... There are not andcannot be any points of contact,conciliation or converg e n c ebetween them. Thereforeworking men should not fearseparate Wo m e n’s Days, norspecial conferences of womenw o r kers, nor their special press.

Every special, distinct form ofwork among the women of theworking class is simply a meansof arousing the consciousness ofthe woman worker and drawingher into the ranks of thosefighting for a better future...Wo m e n’s Days and the slow,meticulous work undertaken toarouse the self-consciousness ofthe woman worker are servingthe cause not of the division butof the unification of the workingc l a s s .

Let a joyous sense of servingthe common class cause and offighting simultaneously for theirown female emancipationinspire women workers to joinin the celebration of Wo m e n’ sD a y.

A l exandra Kollontai p i c t u r e da b o v e was a key leader of theBolsheviks in the Ru s s i a nRevolution and a pioneeringtheorist of women’s liberation.This article ‘Wo m e n’s Day’ isfrom A l exandra Ko l l o n t a i :Selected Articles and Speeches,published in Moscow 1984 byProgress Publishers ★

U n i t y! TUC Wo m e n ’s Confe rence 2010

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making the link between working class power & liberat i o n

The imperial contro v e r s y Challenging the empire apologistsby Andrew Murray £12.95 (£2 p&p) 150pp The education re v o l u t i o n C u b a’s alternative to neoliberalismby Théodore H. MacDonald £14.95 (£2 p&p) 265pp Illustrated Killing no murd e r ? South Wales and the Great Railway Strike of1911 by Robert Griffiths £12.95 (£2 p&p) 126pp illustrated

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U n i t y! TUC Wo m e n ’s Confe rence 20104

continued from front page

Three years later in 1910 theCopenhagen Conference of theSecond International ClaraZetkin proposed the followingmotion:

‘…..the Socialist women of allcountries will hold each year aWo m e n’s Day, whose foremostpurpose it must be to aid theattainment of women’s suffrage. This demand must be handledin conjunction with the entirew o m e n’s question according toSocialist precepts. The Wo m e n’ sDay must have an international character and is to be preparedc a r e f u l l y. ’

The motion was carried: 8March was favoured, although atthis stage no formal date wasset. Nonetheless IWD wasm a r ked by rallies anddemonstrations in the US andmany European countries in theyears leading to World War One,albeit on different days eachyear (e.g. March 18th in 1911 inAu s t r i a - H u n g a r y, GermanyDenmark and Switzerland andthe last Sunday in February inthe US.)

Zetkin (editor of G l e i c h e i t o r‘ E q u a l i t y’ along with SylviaPankhurst (editor of ‘ Wo m e n’ sDreadnought’ l a t e r ‘ Wo r ke r sD r e a d n o u g h t ’) saw that thestruggle for women’s rights andw o m e n’s liberation wasindissolubly linked to thestruggle for socialism. However,this did not mean that they werecontent to wait for the revolutionbefore campaigning for workingwomen. Both thought thatsocialism would be impossibleto achieve without the activeinvolvement of women. Zetkinw r o t e :

‘Just as the male worker issubjugated by the capitalist, sois the woman by the man, andshe will always remain insubjugation until she iseconomically independent. Wo r kis the indispensible conditionfor economic independence’

In 1917 in Ru s s i a ,

International Wo m e n’s Dayacquired great significance – itwas the flashpoint for theRussian Revolution. On 8 March( Western calendar) womenw o r kers in Petrograd held amass strike and demonstrationdemanding Peace and Bread.The strike movement spreadfrom factory to factory andeffectively became aninsurrection. In 1922, in honourof the women’s role on IWD in1917, Lenin declared that 8March should be designatedofficially as women’s day. Muchlater it was a national holiday inthe Soviet Union and most of theformer socialist countries. Thecold war may explain why it wasthat a public holiday celebratedby communists, was larg e l yignored in the West, despite thefact that in 1975 (InternationalWo m e n’s Year), the UnitedNations recognised 8 March asInternational Wo m e n’s Day.

Today we acknowledge thatIWD gives us an opportunity todraw attention to our ownstruggles for women’s rights(still as yet unfulfilled), to linkthis with women’s strugglesworldwide and to demonstrateinternational sisterly solidaritywith working womeneverywhere. There is a danger,h o w e v e r, in the welter of ‘f u n’events that have been org a n i s e din many cities worldwide, thatthe socialist feminist origins ofIWD are being forgotten.

We must not allow this tohappen, and whilst there isnothing wrong with womenenjoying themselves, we shouldalso use the occasion tocampaign for our currentdemands, supported by manytrade unions, as contained inour ‘Charter for Wo m e n’. ★

w w w. c h a r t e r f o r w o m e n . o rg . u k / .Mary Davis is the CommunistParty women’s org a n i s e r

Cover picture‘Down with kitchen slavery, for anew life!’1931 Soviet poster

by Carolyn Jones

As we count down to a generalelection, one thing seemscertain – post-election cuts willfall on the many, not on the fewand women will feel the brunt.The working majority will payfor an economic meltdowncreated by the privileged few.Deregulated during the Thatcheryears and encouraged underNew Labour, bankers and bossesspeculated, asset-stripped andexploited until the whole rottensystem stumbled and fell. Now,in an effort to rebuild a meaner,leaner international capitaliststructure, politicians, mediamoguls, employers and thejudicial system are united intheir determination to ensurethat the workers pay while thecapitalists play.

And play they are. Bossesbonuses and bankers bonanzasare back. £38 million to HSBCbosses; £1.3billion toinvestment bankers at RBS;58% rise in profits to BritishGas shareholders. This is war.Class war. And battle lines arebeing drawn throughout Europe.In Greece, France, Germany andSpain, thousands are taking to

the streets under a commontheme – we will not pay for yourcrisis. Back off and lookelsewhere for savings (warmachine) and income (Fa i rt a xe s ) .

Noting and fearing a similarresponse, British bosses areinceasingly turning to anti unionlaws to deny democraticdecisions of workers. Re c e n tinjunctions against First Londonbus drives, BA cabin crews,EDF Power workers and MilfordHaven harbour crews show howthe full force of the law is beingused to quell worker resistanceand undermine union attemptsto protect members’ jobs andc o n d i t i o n s .

If the law on ballots continuesto prevent unions responding totheir members then the law mustgo. That’s why we continue tosupport calls for a Trade UnionFreedom Bill and why wesupport John McDonnell’s EDM710 on simplifying the ballotingp r o c e d u r e .

But the law will not changeuntil it’s challenged. And thetime to challenge is now.★

Carolyn Jones is the CommunistParty trade union org a n i se r

Wo r kers’ ballots and bosses’ bonuses

Higher and higher ( e d u c a t i o n )Communist University of Britain30 July – 1 August 2010London

Aces from the 586th Wo m e n’s Fighter Re g i m e n tLilya Litvyak, 12 kills, Katya Budanova, 11 kills and Mariya Ku z n e t s o v a

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