Clara Zetkin’s report to the Comintern’s Organization Conference on Communist Work Among Women held in April, 1925.

‘Report of the General Secretary of the International Women’s Secretariat’ by Clara Zetkin from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 5 No. 56. July 15, 1925.

Report On the Activity of the International Women’s Secretariat and the Progress of Work among Women in the Sections.

My report will be brief. The point of greatest importance is to hear the reports given by the representatives of the individual sections.

The task set the International Women’s Secretariat was the execution of the decisions of the V. World Congress and of the International Communist Women’s Conference. This task consisted of the complete ideological and organisatory incorporation of communist work among women into the general work of the Party. This task has nothing to do with the question of the right and duty of women comrades to co-operate, on terms of perfect equality as members of the Sections, in all work, actions, and struggles in the Communist Parties. This right and this duty are beyond question. Our task is to win over the broad masses of working women for the principles of communism, and to make them so at one with these principles that their faith becomes action. The masses of proletarian women must be induced to take part in all the economic, political, and social struggles of the proletariat and to do this under the leadership of the Communist Parties and of the Communist International. The Communist Parties must create suitable organs for the accomplishment of this task. In every leading body from the national Central down to the nucleus one member is to be specially entrusted with the duty of systematically organising the work among the masses of the women. This member whether a man or a woman comrade must of course receive the help of the necessary technical aids and auxiliaries. The work of the women’s secretary or women’ secretariat must be complemented by the co-operation of auxiliary organs: women’s committees, women’s agitation committees, etc. The International Women’s Secretariat has set the example of complete incorporation. In every question it invariably co-operates with the corresponding working departments of the Communist International. It has done this with reference to the Department for Agitation and Propaganda, the Organisation Bureau and the Co-operative Department. It invites representatives of the various Sections to take part in its meetings. It co-operates with the related revolutionary organisations: the Red International of Labour Unions, the Peasants’ International, Youth International, International Red Relief and International Workers Aid.

Unfortunately the ideological and organisatory incorporation of communist work among women is still exceedingly incomplete in the majority of the Sections of the West. Very few of the Communist Parties possess the required apparatus.

The central incorporation of work among women has made the greatest progress in Germany. But there is still much left to be desired here in the districts and centres.

In France the central organ has been created by the appointment of a woman secretary, but until quite recently her activity was confined almost solely to Paris.

In Italy earnest endeavours have been made towards the organisation of a good apparatus, despite Fascism. Here there is a national women’s secretariat, reinforced by a national women’s committee, composed of representatives of the large provinces. 29 federal women’s agitation committees have already sprung into existence, but the Party has not yet organised and developed the work sufficiently in the various centres.

The apparatus is still exceedingly imperfect in England. The national woman secretary receives practically no technical aid, and in the various districts and centres there is a lack of organs making it possible to co-operate with the Central for the awakening and mobilisation of the masses.

Czecho Slovakia possesses a well developed apparatus for work among the women. Unfortunately, up to the present, we have no definite information as to the relations between the various departments, as to the organisatory relations to the Party Executive, to the Party press, etc.

In the United States the organisation so it appears to us does not seem to have been commenced on right lines for our work.

This has however been the case in Austria and Holland. In Sweden and Norway there are still many remains of the old social democratic forms of organisation. We have no definite data of the state of affairs in Poland, the Party there being obliged to work illegally or semi-illegally.

As a general rule we find the following two erroneous tendencies with regard to the incorporation of women’s work into the general work of the Party. Despite the repeated decisions of the World Congresses there are still independent women’s communist organisations, working side by side with the Party. And on the other hand there is a tendency to deny the necessity of special systematic work among the masses of proletarian women, by means of special organs. Both tendencies must be overcome.

What has been accomplished towards carrying out the work itself? The World Congress and the Women’s conference laid special emphasis upon the extreme importance of reaching the working women in the shops and factories. This is closely bound up with the reorganisation of the Party with regard to factory nucleus work, and with the growing economic struggles of the proletariat. Unfortunately, work in this direction has not yet made much progress.

The best work has been done by the Communist Party in Germany, though even here it is by no means perfect. A beginning has been made with the work of organisation among the working women in large industrial centres, such as Berlin, Saxony, Thuringia and Wurtemberg. The initiative has been taken by the women’s departments, these entering into communication with Party and Trade Union functionaries. Special success is reported from the work among the women textile workers of Thuringia. In Gera it was possible to convocate a delegates’ meeting among the women textile workers, and this elected a permanent women workers’ committee. A committee of women home workers’ was founded in Berlin. Systematic work towards organising the women was interrupted by the election campaign undertaken by the Party. This fact shows the weaknesses of our general Party work in the shops and factories. The situation should have been utilised for mobilising the women workers in the factories.

In France the Paris Federation drew up an excellent programme for work among the women workers in the factories. The International Women’s Secretariat forwarded this to all Sections as information and stimulation. Up to the present we have received no report on the actualisation of this programme, nor on the necessary extension of the work to the great industrial centres in the provinces: the Département du Nord, Lyons and its environs, upper Alsatia etc.

In England, Party work among the proletarian masses has been chiefly confined to the miners, metal workers, and transport workers, these being the bearers of the Minority movement. Practically nothing has been done towards organising the working women in the factories. The Minority movement has been extended too little to the trade unions in which women are organised. It is not sufficient to organise women merely for the struggles against the employers, they are to be enlisted in the ranks of the fighters against trade union bureaucracy, and among the champions of trade union unity.

This must be done in all the countries of the West. Here the women organised in trade unions are everywhere supporters of trade union bureaucracy, although this betrays the interests of the working women.

In Germany the women Party functionaries held a conference participated in by the women shop stewards from different districts. This conference proposed that the elections to the factory councils and to the local trade union administrative bodies should be utilised for systematic work among the women, and for their trade unionist organisation and education. For this purpose working women are to be nominated as candidates in the oppositional or communist lists.

In France the C.G.T.U. has appointed in Paris a women secretary for the furtherance of trade union work among the working women, and is arranging a national conference at which this question will be dealt with. The C.G.T.U. intends to co-operate systematically with the national women’s secretariat of the French C.P. for the organisation of the women.

Up to now there has been but little Party activity in England towards the trade union organisation and schooling of the women workers in those industries in which women’s work plays a great, if not decisive role: the textile industry, ready-made clothing and foodstuff trades etc. The International Women’s Secretariat proposed to utilise the last unemployed conference for this purpose, as also the conferences held by the Minority movement. The work being done by our trade union fractions among the working women who are not organised in the trade unions, and among women trade union members, must be greatly increased. Detailed representations on these questions have been sent to England by the International Women’s Secretariat.

In districts where women take a smaller part in industrial. work, but where the attitude adopted by the housewives is of decisive importance in strikes and political struggles, auxiliary organs and organisations must be created for the activisation of the masses of proletarian women, and these must maintain a permanent and regular organised connection with the Communist Party, working under its leadership. These organs and organisations, which we require at the same time for the non-communist working women, must begin at once to develop on Russian lines into delegates’ corporations. This must of course not be done by mechanical imitation, but the actual given circumstances ruling in the separate countries must be taken into account.

The beginnings of such a development were noticeable in Germany, in the form of control and action committees, during the movement caused by the high prices. In England the proletarian women’s guilds comprise the proletarian women in sympathy with us.

Organisations of sympathising proletarian women have, been founded in Italy; these however appear to include communist women as well and thus go beyond the limits of their actual character. In the United States we had the “Council for working class women” to which not only many leading women  communists and individual members belonged, but more than 40 non-communists women’s organisations. This was dissolved by the Workers Party, but it is certain to be reorganised and called back into existence.

It will be one of the leading tasks of this conference to follow comrade Nikolayeva’s address by a detailed discussion of the practical ways and means to be pursued for creating the organs and organisations which are to keep up the contact between the broad masses of proletarian women and the Communist Party. Methods of works among the peasant women have bee indicated by a circular with question form sent by the I.W.S. to all Sections. Most of these have sent no reply. Reports on small holders’ conferences, press notices etc. show that slight efforts are being made to take up this important work in Germany.

With respect to our press, our Parties have no clear idea of the tasks and aims of the so-called women’s press. We are all agreed in principle that the theoretical and political schooling of our women comrades is to be effected by the general Party press, its political and scientific organs. The same applies to problems pertaining to the so-called women’s question and women’s demands, for these are at the bottom the problems and demands of the proletariat. The “Women’s Pages” and “Women’s Columns” in the general Party press should be adapted, like the special women’s papers, to the broad masses of working women. This object is but partially attained, owing to the double character of their publications. Their contents are adapted in part for women comrades, and in part for the masses of women just awakening. This is explained by the fact that the general press organs of our sections do not adequately fulfill the tasks of schooling the women comrades theoretically and politically, so that the need arises to deal with urgent question in special “Women’s Pages” and women’s papers.

Organs which are already fairly well adapted to the needs of the broad masses of women are following: in Germany the “Kommunistin”, organ of the German C.P. and various working women’s newspapers appearing in the provinces; in France the Party papers “L’Ouvrière”. Our Party press in Italy appeals to the women comrades, to the Party functionaries, and to the masses of the proletarian women. Almost all articles, notices, etc. are written in such a simple and popular style that they can be understood even by backward women. In this respect the character of our women’s press in Czecho Slovakia is extremely contradictory and unclear.

As a general rule the purport of our women’s newspapers of every description is not yet sufficiently permeated with communist principles. The events and facts dealt with are not linked up vitally with the daily slogans of the Party, of the trade unions, or of the proletarian struggle. We receive valuable material from the women of the proletariat in support of our charges against capitalism, but this does not raise our women’s press to the level of an organ for training and leading the masses of women.

It is of leading importance for overcoming this drawback that Worker correspondents should by organised and schooled from among working women, workmen’s wives, and if possible peasant women. It need not be said that the letters sent by these women must be carefully examined, and brought into line with the principles of communism, naturally with the agreement of the writers. This must be done with the requisite fine feeling for the thoughts, feelings, and modes of expression of the correspondents. Their contributions must lose nothing of their freshness and originality, and on the other hand our women’s papers must not be permitted to become the gathering place of petty bourgeois and uncommunist views, and even of unconsciously anti-communist views. The correspondence carried on by working women, the contributions sent by working women to factory newspapers and other organs, educate proletarian women to independent thought, to independent activity and self-reliance. Besides this, they form personal, reliable, and zealous fulcrums for our organisatory work in the factories, and give us canvassers for our press. I confine myself to this abbreviated and general survey of the progress of our work among working women.

The experience gained by the I.W.S. shows that outside of the Soviet Union there is an international shortage of men and women comrades who, schooled in theory and practice, have actually grasped the whole complex of the women’s question as a part of the social question in the sense of Marxism and Leninism, and have there seen clearly that at the bottom every so-called woman’s question is also a man’s question, a children’s question in a word, a social problem concerning the whole proletariat. Our comrades are not yet thoroughly imbued with Lenin’s view that without the participation of millions of women the proletariat is not in a position to seize and maintain power, and is unable to reconstruct society on communist lines after seizing power.

We must call theory and practice to our aid clear away the Philistinism still clinging to many of our comrades. The whole of the institutions and organs of the Communist Parties are to be so adapted that they not only serve the purpose of general enlightenment, but ensure at the same time the development of Marxist understanding in the women’s question. Thus for instance the treatment of this question must be made part of the educational programme of the national sections. It is of the utmost importance to ensure that the largest possible number of women comrades utilise the educational opportunities. Lenin emphasised that we can only have a good revolutionary movement if we have a good revolutionary theory. Until this has been realised by both men and women comrades our work among the masses of women is but patchwork. Our utmost endeavous must be towards gaining the right to say: In this sphere too we are Bolsheviki, understanding pupils of the master, ready to convert good revolutionary theory into good revolutionary practice.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecor” 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. Inprecor’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 Inprecor, 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/1925/v05n56-jul-15-1925-inprecor.pdf