A valuable early report from the Women’s Secretariat of the Communist International for countries of the ‘Near East’ with sections on Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Syria, Persia, and Egypt. Valentina Adler was the daughter of Alfred Adler and a founder of the Austrian Communist Party, and later a member of the German party. Fleeing to the Soviet Union after 1933, she would, like so many, perish in the Purges; arrested and imprisoned in 1937 she died in 1942.

‘The Position of the Women’s Movement in the Near East’ by Dina Schreiber (Valentina Adler) from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 3 No. 47. June 28, 1923.

Since the war, a growing interest has been felt by every stratum of the population of the countries of the Near and Far East. The whole proletariat of the Occident is turning with ever increasing interest to the East, for it is well aware that the awakening proletarian masses of the Orient represent powerful allies against Imperialism, and that the successes won by the eastern proletariat are determined by, and in turn determine the western proletarian forces.

The struggles arising among the proletarian masses have naturally been accompanied by a mighty women’s movement. The women of the working and peasant class, after centuries of degradation and exploitation, were, however, incapable of taking the initiative in the fight for their emancipation; in most cases they were only able to take part in a bourgeois intellectual women’s emancipation movement, as a forerunner to their own movement. It was not until after the Russian revolution that the limitations of the bourgeois women’s movement were overcome, and women induced to take part in the general struggle for social emancipation. The Women’s Secretariat for the Near and Far East has undertaken the leadership in this struggle. The task is by no means a light one. For the economic development, and the resultant social and legal status of woman, varies greatly in the different regions of this vast area. The women living in the industrial centres (for instance Baku, Batum) have, for decades, been class-conscious fighters; but on the other hand the Musselman, Tartar, and Armenian women of the peasant and trading class belong to the most backward section of the population. It was not until the war that the pressure of economic necessity obliged them to break through the confines of mere domestic work, and drove them to work in the fields and factories, thus creating the first premise for their emancipation. The national hate amongst the various tribes exploited by each succeeding ruler of these districts for playing the peoples off against each other, is another obstacle in the way of a united revolutionary movement. Different working methods are required in the trans-Caucasian Soviet district–where women enjoy legal and economic equality–and in the districts still under foreign rule.

Comrades Kasparova and Arbori-Ralli have sent in an extremely interesting report on their work to the International Women’s Secretariat. The following is an epitome of this report:

I. The Soviet countries of the Near East.

A) Georgia. Even before the proletarian revolution, the belonging to the industrial centres (Tiflis, Bakum, Kutais), took active part in the proletarian movement and in numerous strikes. In 1917 they received full political rights; five women were elected to the constituent assembly. But is was not until after the Bolshevist revolution that the women displayed great political interest. The women’s communist groups in Georgia have come into existence since this time. At the Soviet elections held in Tiflis 1921 18 women were elected, in the province of Tiflis 22 women, in Senak 24, etc. After the Bolshevist revolution, Musselman women’s schools were established in Tiflis, and weaving and spinning co-operatives were founded; of these last, the co-operative workshop founded by nuns is worthy of special attention, communist propaganda having exercised the greatest influence on this. The greatest attention is devoted to the establishment of maternity and children’s homes.

Two obstacles have lain in the path of the communist movement: in the first place the backwardness of the peasant element forming the greater part of the population; in the second place the national hate against Russia, caused by the oppression of the Caucasian tribes under Czarism, and which was further stirred up to the highest possible degree by the Menshevist government. To these are to be added the violent national antagonism within the country itself between Ossetes and Georgians, Armenians and Jews. All these reasons explain why it is only since 1922 that really large masses of working and peasant women have joined the communist movement.

B) Armenia. Armenia is the poorest of the Soviet countries, and is decidedly an agrarian country. It was not until the war that the women forsook housework to go and work in the fields. The movement here has thus been preeminently a house-wives’ and peasants’ movement. Since the rule of the Soviets, they have taken part in public life. In 1922, there were 61 women elected to the Soviets; the deputy president of the executive committee of the Armenian Republic is a peasant woman. Characteristically, in this backward country the leading role is played by the intellectual women.

C) Azerbaijan. There is no country in which the proletarian revolution has exercised such a powerful influence on the position of women as in Azerbaijan, for here the prerequisite, industrial development, was already present. The Russian, Armenian, and Jewish working women, working in the Baku district, are also entirely different to the Turkish women vegetating as mere slaves to their husbands in the interior of the country. But even in the industrial districts, the women did not obtain perfect equality until after the proletarian revolution. But the struggle is not merely for the recognition of woman’s personality, it is for the transformation of her position in economic and social life. For this purpose, women’s co-operatives are being founded, for agricultural work, for silk-worm breeding, for weaving, embroidery, and carpet making. Where such work cannot be instituted schools are established, and the women instructed in social work

The number of communist women in Azerbaijan is 20,000; at the congress held in 1921, 1200 delegates appeared from the most backward villages.

The clearest picture of the movement throughout the whole of the Transcausasian Soviet Republics was afforded by the congress meeting at Baku in May 1922: 262 delegates were present, representing twelve different Caucasian nationalities; 163 delegates were non-partisan, 98 communists, one a Menshevis; all were filled with the proud consciousness that the working population of the Trans-Causasian Soviet states represents the vanguard of all the peoples of the East.

II. The Newly Awakened East.

In the colonial districts the movement is faced with much greater difficulties. For here every means is being employed to suppress any attempt at independent economic and political development. The natural result is that the class war character of the movement, being concealed under national forms, is not always sufficiently apparent, so that it has frequently happened, that native bourgeoisie and proletariat have joined forces to fight against the “national enemy”. But every success won by the national bourgeoisie further accentuates the contradictions within the country itself, and helps to dig the grave of the bourgeoisie.

A) Turkey. For many centuries Turkey was a poor vassal state, alternately plundered by England, France, Germany, and Russia throughout the whole of the 20th century. Raw materials were obtained from the country, and worked up in the western states. But the western capitalists were too afraid of competition to permit any native industry to develop. Thus Turkey became the typical land of constant decay, where a bribed and corrupt bureaucracy lived a pleasant life at the expense of ignorant masses of peasants. No alteration took place until the Turkish revolution in 1908: some few industrial undertakings were founded, the women ceased working in their homes, and gradually commenced working in the weaving and spinning mills, and in the tobacco factories, on starvation wages and with a 12 hour day. But there was still no thought of a proletarian women’s movement. Reports were received only of a bourgeois women’s movement, which originated in connection with the young Turkish revolution and demanded some separate items of women’s rights.

It was the war which brought about the proletarian women’s movement. During the war the men were at the front. Every worker was required. Women’s labor made its way into every workshop, into trade and transport, into war industry, even into the army itself. Thus in Anatolia women took part in national defence. Today 20 % of all workers in Turkey are women.

So long as the Communist Party was working illegally, work among the women was extremely difficult; but today, now that the party is legal, it has organized numerous meetings for working women, published women’s articles in the communist newspapers Imen and Ikaz, and has issued 5 women’s pamphlets.

The backwardness of the country renders it necessary to employ different forms of propaganda to those in Europe; for despite the significance gained by women in economic life during the war, they are still completely without political rights. The national movement, directed against foreign capital, continues to play an important part. But the continued impoverishment of the Turkish masses, who are no longer living scattered all over the country, but are concentrated in the large cities and factories, and thus better able to perceive the community of their wretched fate, furthers the influence exercised by the communist parties of Europe, and especially the shining example of Soviet Russia; all this is driving the working masses into conflicts which lead far beyond their original aims.

B) Syria. In 1840, French capital established the first silk factories in Syria. By the year 1912 there were already 200 factories, belonging for the most part to the English. In 1911 there, were 120.0 women to 14,000 workmen. Foreign capital did away with home industry, converted the semi-nomadic peoples into settled tribes, and shut up the women for 13 hours daily in the factories. The prevalence of women’s work has been accompanied by a corresponding greater participation of women in intellectual life. The objective prerequisites for the development of a proletarian women’s movement are to a great extent given.

C) Persia. As yet, no proletarian women’s movement exists in Persia. The feudal conditions under which Persian economic life is carried on, and which are strenuously maintained by foreign capital, render any proletarian movement impossible. There are only a few intellectual women, who, having completed their studies in Europe, revolt against the existing conditions. In 1921 a popular women’s paper Woman’s World appeared in Teheran, edited by an academically educated woman. This periodical was prohibited, with the agreement of the socialist party, as it was alleged to run counter to the laws of the Koran. It was however speedily replaced by another newspaper, the Lissane Zinon (Women’s Voice) which continues to exist today.

D) Egypt. Conditions are very different in Egypt. As early as 1890 the best known of Egyptian au hors, Kassim Emir, “the Luther of the Orient”, raised his protest in two of his works against the degradation of women. Since this time, changes in woman’s social position may be observed, but only in bourgeois circles. The wife of the fellah continues to perform the hardest labor, whilst her husband continues to loaf about as before. The women of the lower classes are exposed to a threefold exploitation: exploitation by their husbands, by the state, and by foreign capital. Industry is more developed in Egypt than in the other countries of the Near East. In 1897 there were already 63,700 women occupied in tobacco factories, spinning and weaving mills. This number is steadily increasing. They are worked 12 hours a day for a wage one third of that paid the men. But before 1919 it was impossible to speak of a proletarian women’s movement. The women participated extensively in the great strikes of the year 1919/20, which were directed against English rule. They acted as pickets, erected barricades, and participated in all the street fights. They took energetic part in every street demonstration, and in some girls’ schools there were even strikes organized against English teachers!

Although all sections of the population participate in this struggle, the movement is permeated by innumerable nationalist notions. But in every colonial state the national movement is the necessary precursor to the struggle for social emancipation. The historical task to be performed by the communist parties within the colonial states consists therefore, in the recognition and utilization of the national movement as a necessary transition movement in the fight for social emancipation.

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/1923/v03n46-jun-28-1923-Inprecor-loc.pdf