Alexandra Kollontai reports on the history and work of the International Women’s Secretariat of the Communist International.
‘The Third International and the Working Woman’ by Alexandra Kollontai from Bulletin of the E.C.C.I. Vol. 1 No. 4. December 23, 1921.
At the moment of the formation of the Third International the women represented not only an active industrial factor in the world economy, but a political force as well, filling up the ranks of the political groupings according to their more or less developed class consciousness.
In the interests of its objects the Third International was compelled to take up quite a new position already at its first Congress in Moscow in 1919 with regard to the question of attracting the women to the struggle for the dictatorship, and voiced distinctly its views in favour of the necessity of work among the wider masses of women. There is no guarantee of victory, no possibility of construction without the participation of the working women.
In 1920 the Communist International founded an International Women’s Secretariat in the Executive Committee. This I.W.S. is not an independent organ, as it was in the Second International; it is simply one of the working apparatus of the Communist International, enlarging the activities of the Communist parties by yet another militant task — namely the task of the complete and all-sided liberation of the women.
In contradistinction to the Second International, the Third in planning out its political actions takes into consideration the forces, the degree of organisedness and the class consciousness of the working women. For the Third International the working youth and the women are special “cadres” of the proletariat, which must be utilised for the realisation of a single plan of action. The women have ceased to be only an auxiliary element; the world war and the thunder claps of the workers’ revolution, which have found their expression in the development of the civil war in its different aspects, have made an active political force of the working women in the other countries also. The Communist womanworker has taken up her historical place under the banner of the Communist International.
In the reiterated actions of the German proletariat during these last stormy years of the commencing social revolution; in the prolonged economic «strikes of England; in the revolutionary fights of the Hungarian and Finnish proletarians for Soviet power; in the actions of the Italian workers and the heroic struggle of the working women and the peasants of Russia; in the United States; in the growing movement of the Japanese proletariat — everywhere the women of the proletariat are working, struggling and generously sacrificing themselves, their families, their lives.
During the years of great struggles not only the mass worker himself but also his class mate—the working woman — have grown older, stronger and more class conscious. The material is at hand. It should be utilised. The work must be deployed in all its width and breadth. The first step has been taken already.
The Third Congress of the Communist International has pledged all the Communist parties of the world to form sections for propaganda work among the women in pursuance of the example of the Russian Communist Party, and to carry on the work among the women on the principles and methods established by the Second International Conference of Women Communists. At present in almost all the Communist parties of Europe Women’s sections have not only been formed but, what is especially important, they are carrying on the work according to a uniform plan. By this means not only good practical results are attained, but this helps also to strengthen the spirit of internationalism, of cohesion, of a feeling of solidarity, which the Second International lacked so much. The principle of the necessity of attracting the women to the struggle for Communism is cropping up and is strengthened not only in the capitalistically developed West, — but also in the economically backward countries of the East. The Second International never attempted to spread its influence beyond the countries of Western culture. The East was a stranger to it. The International did not even try to set itself the task of attracting the women of the backward nations to the struggle for their liberation through Socialism. The International Women’s Secretariat of the Communist International, on the contrary, gives special attention to the East, estimating correctly that the conquest of the East is the surest method of dealing world capitalism a blow in the back. In Korea the women’s labour movement is most imposing in its proportions. The working women take part in the armed uprisings, they not only express their will in the strikes, but they are trained to the use of arms. In Japan 58% of all the workers in the industry are women. The textile industry, which is so greatly developed in Japan, is carried on by the labour of women. In the plantations of India over 2 million women are working. In the home industries of the Near East women’s labour plays an important role. The developing capitalist industry in China is supported by the labour of women and children. The yoke of capitalism is interwoven with religious traditions and the survivals of patriarchal customs, which are oppressing the women. There is only one issue — the struggle for Communism. Naturally, the very first attempts of the International Women’s Secretariat to enter into contact with the advanced part of the women proletariat of the East meet with a live response. The East is waking up, the East is beginning to move. A centre for the work among the women is being created in the Near and in the Far East. On December 1st the I.W.S. has summoned a separate conference in the Near East for the women representatives of Turkey, Persia and the Caucasian Republics. By spring time the I.W.S. is planning a conference of Communists from the countries of the Far East. The work is progressing, the ties with the East are growing stronger, new forms of work and special tasks connected with the peculiar mode of life and special conditions of the women of the Eastern peoples are being planned out.
The I.W.S. is not only an organ of propaganda, but of action as well. The work of relief for the famishing workers of Soviet Russia has called forth the organisation of collections of donations on the part of German, Swedish, Czecho-Slovak, Bulgarian and other women Communists. The day of the great anniversary of the revolution—November 7th—has been fixed once and for all by the Communist women of Sweden, Germany and a number of other countries as a day of public demonstrations, meetings of working women, publication of leaflets, appeals, etc.
Each country has its own woman correspondent, connected with the I.W.S. The latter proposes to call a conference in February of all these correspondents in the countries of the East and West. By the efforts of the Communist International two international conferences of Communist women have already been carried out in 1920 and 1921, in connection with the Congresses of the Communist International. The I.W.S. has published six numbers of its international organ (“The Communist Women’s International” under the editorship of Klara Zetkin). The last number is devoted almost exclusively to the Second International Conference of Communist women. In summing up the results, achieved by the Communist International in the matter of attracting the working women’s masses into the struggle for Communism, it is necessary to reckon not so much with the practical attainments of the movement, as with the tremendous heave which has been accomplished in the question of the attitude towards women on a world scale since the time of the October revolution and with the help of the Communist International. Not so long ago the bourgeois world was faced by the question, as yet unsolved by capitalism, of the equality of rights and the all-sided liberation of women. The dictatorship of the working class in Russia has solved this outstanding problem also. The so-called “Question of Women’s Rights” does not exist for Soviet Russia. The role of the women in the public economy, their passing over to productive labour instead of the unproductive slaving for their families —has wrought a radical change in the position of the women and the attitude of the toiling society towards them. The proletariat of the whole world has now a live example before its eyes as to how the fate of the entire proletariat, and in particular that of the working class women, has been modified with the victory of the aims to which the Third International is calling and striving. Great are the achievements of the working class during these four years of Revolution, great is the heave accomplished in a whole number of social-political questions. But yet the greatest achievement of the Russian Revolution and the Third International in these four years lies in the solution of the problem of the liberation of the working women. The practical road to a radical solution of the question of equal rights for the women has been found and pointed out. Through the dictatorship and world federation of the workers under the banners of the Communist International—we shall go to the building up of Communism, and, consequently, to the liberation of the women.
The ECCI published the magazine ‘Communist International’ edited by Zinoviev and Karl Radek from 1919 until 1926 irregularly in German, French, Russian, and English. Unlike, Inprecorr, CI contained long-form articles by the leading figures of the International as well as proceedings, statements, and notices of the Comintern. No complete run of Communist International is available in English. Both were largely published outside of Soviet territory, with Communist International printed in London, to facilitate distribution and both were major contributors to the Communist press in the U.S. Communist International and Inprecorr are an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.
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