Clara Zetkin looks forward to the upcoming Congress of the Communist Women’s International.

‘The Tasks of the Third International Congress of the Communist Women’ by Clara Zetkin from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 4 No. 35. June 19, 1924.

I. The Will to Capturing Power and for the Revolution.

At the conclusion of the V. World Congress of the Communist International there will be held in Moscow the 3rd International Conference of Communist Women. A long period separates it from the preceding conference which was held in the Summer of 1921 before the III. World Congress. Since that time there have taken place: two conferences of the International Women Correspondents in 1922, and further, on the occasion of the IV. World Congress, sittings and discussions of the men and women comrades delegated to this Congress who recognised the importance of Communist propaganda among working women. Unfortunately, in consequence of various circumstances, among them the reign of terror and illegality in Italy, Bulgaria, Germany, etc. the International Women Correspondents did not meet once during 1923.

The leading motive of our International Women’s Conference is furnished by the inner, indissoluble connection of the Communist Women’s Movement with the Communist International as the fighting, leading, world organization of the proletariat for its emancipation by the World Revolution. Great stress must be laid upon this fact in all the deliberations and decisions on all points of the agenda. The Conference will therefore be largely controlled by the decisions of the preceding World Congress. Its decisions will be the highest law. It must be expressed in unmistakable terms that it is the chief duty of the women comrades of all countries to develop the highest activity in full accordance with the principle and tactical decisions of the Congress and the tasks indicated by it. This must be done, not only in general with all the work and struggles of the different national sections of the Communist International, but also in the special field of the activity for revolutionising the great masses of working women. This activity must always be considered as part of the general whole, and must be closely connected with it.

The World Congress will indicate the next tasks of the Communists on the basis of a profound examination of the world-economic and world-political situation. Has the capitalist system of profit-making, and with it the political rule of the bourgeoisie, again got firmly on its feet so that we have to reckon upon a longer period of its existence and of the stagnation of the revolutionary proletarian class war? Or to state it in other terms: Can the revolutionary vanguard of the working class be content with rallying and leading the exploited and suppressed masses to the defensive against capitalism, or must they not much rather go over to the offensive, to advance to the assault for capturing state power? Opinions are divided on this point.

There is no disputing that world economy, in this or the other country, in this or the other branch of industry, is entering upon a boom period. In the industry of the United States there was, in the past year, a period of great depression followed by a period of greatest prosperity. In England and France various branches of industry have revived. Even in Germany, on occasion, the course of the whole economic life proceeds a trifle less haltingly.

But there are also other facts. Every period of prosperity which beguiles the capitalists and the reformists, remains an isolated, transitory phenomenon. The most symptomatic feature of world-economy is uncertainty, insecurity, vacillation etc. Relatively small incidents are sufficient to favour the most important industry of a state with prosperity and on the morrow to afflict it with depression. Agrarian crises and peasants’ movements striving for political power denote in all countries possessing a large agriculture that capitalism is stirred in its inmost depths and that the bourgeois state is shaken along with it. The greed of the imperialistic states for colonial domination and colonial exploitation as the last possibility of life for bourgeois society is everywhere creating a tangle of conflicts which must be loosed by the sword. The flames of social and national rebellion against oppression and exploitation are breaking out more frequently and with greater strength in the colonial countries. Everywhere in the capitalist world strikes of enormous extent, of long duration and accompanied by admirable self-sacrifice. For the greater part crushed by the exploiters, their police and their armies, strangled by the civil authorities and the reformist “labour leaders”, they are an eloquent testimony to the fighting-will of the proletariat which can be suppressed neither by force nor trickery for any length of time.

To sum up: The women comrades must be conscious of the contradictory, chaotic character of the existing world-situation. That applies not only to the tasks which the International Conference puts before them but also to the mood, the spirit, the fighting will with which they approach and solve these tasks. It would be very short-sighted and disastrous if we were to overlook the fact that contradictory tendencies exist side by side, are crossing each other, stultifying each other but are also promoting, strengthening and invigorating both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary tendencies. Now as heretofore the atmosphere is charged with inflammable materials of the revolution.

It is the most sacred duty of the women Communists of all countries to work conscientiously, constantly and systematically in arousing in millions of working women the will to revolution, to strengthen it, till it becomes quite clear, and becomes welded together with the will of their class-brothers to a mass-will and is transformed into united decisive action. In the various capitalist countries the prevailing conditions under which the women comrades have to fulfil their duty are of the most manifold character. Doubtless the world situation is becoming unstable. But the objective basis for the will to revolution is broad and firm enough so that this must be the international connecting band for the work and the struggle of the women comrades.

With such a historical conception there must be no suggestion that the women base their propaganda among working women solely on one of these two existing possibilities. Neither on the one of a long protracted stoppage of the historical development of the proletariat for the capturing of power in the remote future; nor upon the other one which assumes that the progressive decay of bourgeois society, that the bloody necessities of the exploited and suppressed masses fill them already today with the will to proletarian revolution and will drive them into the fight for the capture of power. The Communist women have to keep booth possibilities in mind. The chief thing is that we hammer into the heads of the millions of women the necessity of capturing power.

The women comrades have therefore to conceive and to carry out every theoretical and practical task to which our International Conference calls them in the light of Lenin’s teaching: the decisive condition for the winning of the majority of the proletariat to the Communist conviction, of the necessity of replacing the class-rule of the bourgeoisie, by the proletarian dictatorship. Forward to the masses! Daily, constant, firm, organized connection of the Communist parties of every country with the masses of working women. This connection will be created by the most energetic, faithful, ruthless defence of the vital interests of the women proletarians, small peasants and petty bourgeoisie; by the fight against the many forms of need with which they are afflicted; by the fight for everything that tends to raise their position. Such action leads to the compelling proof, supported by facts, that the bourgeoisie will not improve the position of the expropriated and oppressed and that the reformist leaders, far from fighting for this aim, treacherously protect the interests of the exploiting and ruling class.

The Communist activities and fights in the interests of the suppressed and down-trodden masses must be made more powerful and comprehensive, as in the actual situation there is also possible a sudden swelling and uprise of the revolutionary wave. This means that the connection between the Communists and the masses must be accomplished within a very short period of time. The women comrades must be fully aware of the fact that they have to play the role of intermediaries and interpreters between the Communist Party and the masses of working women. If they learn to fulfil this task both in small and great things, the sacred flame of fighting determination will remain unextinguished in the millions of hearts of the women masses in the slow-moving times of stagnation and will not burn out in a futile blaze when conditions become acute.

II. Differences in the Character and in the Conditions of Communist Work among the Women Masses in the Capitalist Countries and in the Soviet Republics.

The decisive influence of the revolution upon our next tasks as Communists will be seen in another light at every item of the Agenda at the International Conference. This fact is to be seen in the special importance attached to the proposals and suggestions of our women comrades from the Soviet Republics and in their special attitude towards all questions which will engage our attention at the Conference.

In fact the Russian Communist women have passed through a revolution, a victorious world-shaking revolution, the most powerful which history has seen up to now. They have stood in the ranks of the leading proletarian class party. They will pass over to the women comrades in the capitalist states where the proletariat has not yet wrested the state power from the hands of their exploiters, the experiences of the fight for the capture and maintenance of power. These experiences throw a clear light upon the way which the women comrades outside of the Workers’ and Peasants’ States have to go in order to gain access to the minds of the masses of working women. They will fertilise the working out of such forms and methods of activity among the women as will firmly and effectively connect them with the Communist Party of the given country.

The victory of the proletarian revolution in the Union of Soviet Republics has changed the chief task of the Communist women. Here they have no longer to unite the working women with the Communist Parties for the purpose of capturing power. The proletariat possesses the state power and has set up its dictatorship. Thanks to the Soviet order every proletarian woman forms a part of this power. Nevertheless, the revolution is not yet completed. It proceeds further in that titanic effort, carried on under the most difficult circumstances, to swing the economy and society into the direction of Communism.

The rise of the proletariat to the ruling dictating class in the Workers’ and Peasants’ States, changes, according to the progress of the revolution, the main task of the Communist women among the masses of the women. They have to draw them into the most active collaboration for economic and social reconstruction and to fill them with appreciation of its conditions and of its sublime ends. They have to work in that direction so that in the same measure as their cheerful participation in the work of production increases, so also will their will and capacity become greater. The women comrades of the Soviet Republics are continuing what they began during the struggle for the capture of power. In indefatigable collaboration in the ideological and organizatory work of the Party, and as its Commissionaries, they are active in filling the millions of the working women with unshakable confidence in the Communist Party and in closely linking them up with it.

It is obvious that in every item of our International Conference the decisive, changing and emancipating influence of capturing the power by the proletariat will find expression. Who possesses the state-power? For what ends is state power wielded? The answer to these questions also decides the answer of the international Communist work among the masses of working women. It means either the hampering and retarding of this work, or the freeing and promoting of this work. This essential difference causes us to refrain from transferring in a mechanical and automatic manner into the capitalist countries that which, under the Soviet Star appears in the form of creative blossoming life. But this fact must inflame the will and active power of the Communist women in these countries to a white-hot glow in the struggle for capturing the state power by the proletariat. Internationally they must take the united vow to arouse and win the millions of working women for the proletarian power under the leadership of the Communist International, the women whom capitalism has robbed of life, and happiness, of culture and rights, even of a crust of bread, and for whom capitalism has only misery and chains. The will to revolution must be the Alpha and Omega of the Third International Conference of Communist Women.

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.

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