Communist women meet to embrace the Comintern’s ’21 Conditions’ and demand the immediate formation of a Czecho-Slovak Communist Party.

‘The National Conference of Communist Women in Czecho-Slovakia’ by C.K.K. from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 1 No. 3. October 25, 1921.

Last winter when the struggle concerning the 21 entrance conditions to the Third International was raging in the left wing of the Czech social-democratic party, the party executive, at that time already in its majority communist, considered it necessary to postpone the convention called for the month of May for two months, because they feared that, on account of the insufficient time available for propaganda and discussion the open and concealed centrists would be able to succeed in getting a large part of the doubtful elements to vote against the entrance conditions and thus cause a further split in the party. In the midst of this insufferable condition of uncertainty the Czech working-women, through their clear and decisive position created an entirely new situation. They called their own convention for the 12th and 13th of March in Prague, in which they characterized the entrance into the Third International and the formation of a communist mass-party as absolutely demanded by the interior and international situation and verbally declared:

“If there should occur a further postponement of entrance into the Third International, we are determined to call a special conference for the union of the Czech women’s movement with the section of Communist Youth and the German Communist Party. Our place is by the side of our children, and our postponement of our immediate union with them is only due to the fact that we do not desire to violate the decision of the party executive, since this step would indicate a lack of confidence in those comrades who have been intrusted with the carrying out of that decision. We trust that we will not be compelled to take this step, since it would be a clear demonstration of the weakness and wanting courage of the men comrades. We are fully conscious of the consequences of the acceptance of the entrance conditions of the Third International and realize that we will have to undergo renewed persecution. Nevertheless we demand unconditional adherence to the Communist International.”

This resolution of the women in which they declare their decision to leave the Czech workers’ party together with the youth and unite with the German communists, rather than suffer a further postponement of the final decision was already at that time an historical act.

Therefore it is in accordance with a certain revolutionary tradition that now the women of Czecho-Slovakia have come together before the rest of the working-class and, fourteen days before the Unity Convention, have effected the union of all the national groups in their ranks. The National Congress of Communist Women which took place at Prague-Smichow on the 15th and 16th of October consisted of 75 Czecho-Slovakian 30 German delegates. In the present stage of our movement’s development, Czecho-Slovakian does not only mean Czech and Slovak, but Hungarian and Ruthenian as well and the only measures necessary were the union with the Germans and the Poles. The Czecho-Slovakian delegates represented about 100,000 and the German about 8,000 organized comrades. In the Czecho-Slovakian as well as in the German Communist Party, the women are about 20% of the total organized membership. When it is considered that the women are at least one-half of the population, and in view of the political equality of the sexes; however this percentage is of course somewhat small. It must not be lost sight of that in the old social-democratic party before 1918 the women were only 4% of the membership. Of course there never was as favorable a time for the awakening of class-consciousness among the women as the present. There are untold thousands of women and girls in Czecho-Slovakia who are in the most various ways objects of capitalist exploitation. The economic consequences of the break-down of capitalism are almost even more keenly felt by the female proletariat than by the male workers. Price increases and unemployment turn the life of the proletarian women into a living hell. But not the economic conditions alone are driving the working-women of Czecho-Slovakia into the communist camp. The complete incapacity of political democracy to deal with the especial needs of the proletarian woman have made the working-women realize how little they can expect from the other parties. Although suffrage was granted to the women in 1918 and all parties in Czecho-Slovakian have their women representatives in Parliament, the Czecho-Slovakian Parliament has not done anything for the particular needs of the working-woman.

The women are still waiting for the passage of a law guaranteeing motherhood protection for pregnant working women, hundreds of thousands of proletarian children are still delivered over to destruction within capitalist society. The complete bankruptcy of parliamentarism and the betrayal of the working-class by the social patriots have deeply shaken the belief of the women in political parties in general and made their organization extremely difficult. They fear that in after years someone will come to them and say, “What I preached to you during all this time was a lie. Even I do not believe it anymore.” They hate the social-democratic traitors and as a result of their suffering have voted revolutionarily, but regard anyone who desires to organize them with distrust. When we take these circumstances into consideration, the 20% percentage of women in the movement means a huge success, since it is relatively not less than four times the percentage of 1918, and in figures the number of organized women has increased thirtyfold. In the communist propaganda among the women the lectures on Soviet Russia have met with especial success, for women who in the land of the great humanist Masaryk are socially completely without rights and are delivered over to the public welfare, are influenced in favor of the dictatorship of the proletariat by nothing so much as by the picturing of the enormous work which the Soviet government has accomplished for all children without distinction in the last three years. It can be thus understood why the women organized in the movement are among the most trustworthy and sacrificing members and are not only considered as comrades but as fellow-fighters by the side of the men, who are prepared to make any sacrifice for the liberation of the proletariat.

The fact that the question of the political and economic situation, which was treated by comrade Joskau of Reichenberg was put at the head of the order of business is an indication of the serious spirit of the conference. Comrade Knilové spoke on the International Women’s Congress in Moscow, comrade Krenová on the tactics of the Communist Party and the women, comrade Houserova on the organic uniting of the national women’s sections in Czecho-Slovakia and comrade Rosakova on the children groups. A large number of delegates took part in the debate and for the first time since the split in the old Austrian social-democracy speeches were delivered in various languages, without the sessions of the convention being disturbed in any way.

The congress was a forerunner of the Unity Congress and it was a good omen therefore, for it demonstrated that agreement on all organistional and tactical questions was possible without friction, in spite of the differences in language. There was one language which all participants knew the language of revolutionary readiness for battle and revolutionary will to victory. The Prague government officials naturally were possessed of a somewhat conceivable fear of this language and sent two official representatives to the conference who were, however, promptly put out of the hall by the chairman. The Prague police were particularly interested in the guests at the conference and especially in comrade Baum of Berlin, but this interest could not disturb the conference in the least.

The newly elected executive board of the communist women, in which all nationalities are represented, faces very important tasks. Not only the innumerable women of various occupations–the Slovak agricultural workers, the Prague house servants, and the Northern Bohemia industrial workers, but also the numberless housewives must be drawn into the ranks of the communist party as class-conscious fellow-combatants. We are confident that this executive will do all in its power to render itself worthy of and accomplish its great task.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1921/v01n03-oct-25-1921-inprecor.pdf