The campaign to introduce masses of women, largely unorganized and until recently divorced from public life, and in Russia mostly peasants, to Communism, the work of the Soviets and of their participation in the management of society, was based primarily on ‘Delegate Meetings’ of mainly non-party women of a certain location. Though it was mandated, the process, let alone the successes of the Soviets, was unable to be reproduced by Communist Parties not in positions of state power. Aleksandra Artyukhina explains how they worked in the U.S.S.R. A textile worker, Artyukhina was editor of ‘Rabotnitsa,’ and head of the Department for Work among Women (Zhenotdel) of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party.

‘The Meetings of Delegates of the Working and Peasant Women in the Soviet Union’ by A. Artyukhina from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 5 No. 87. December 17, 1925.

Our meeting of delegates are a school for the masses, a school of communism for the practical training of working and peasant women in the art of State administration and governing. This practical training of millions of working women for State work is proceeding in various other ways also, as for instance through Soviets, trade unions, cooperative societies etc., but the first and most important training of the working and peasant women is that in the meetings of delegates.

In the autumn of 1925, 378,163 women delegates, elected by 9,414,513 women workers and peasants, completed their year of work. They all learned in practice the art of governing the State, but in doing so, they did not turn their back on industrial production or agriculture.

The activities of the meetings of delegates are based on a combination of theory and practice. At the meeting of delegates, a special programme is worked through, which is in every way adapted to the power of comprehension of a working or peasant women who is making her first steps in public life Besides this, a practical question, usually local in its nature, is dealt with in every assembly of workers. These practical questions call forth a lively exchange of opinion among the delegates, as many of them work in the factories etc. 147,067 women delegates (in a total number of 378,163) have worked in practical spheres of work; in 1924 the figures were 60,022 among 208,704.

The women delegates remain in the closest touch with their electors by giving them regular reports of their work and also by bringing up the subject of the demands made by the women electors in suitable organs.

All our meetings of delegates are in close connection with the Party organisations and transmit the influence of the Party to the masses of working and peasant women. The Party has proved that meetings of delegates of the women workers and peasants are the best and most approved form of Party work among the broad masses of working women. The Party endeavours to help the Party organisations by word and deed at the time of the election of delegates.

At the present time, the Party has set itself the task of attracting the broadest masses to the work of Government and administration, of establishing as far as possible a close and insoluble connection between the Party on the one hand and the masses of peasants and workers on the other hand and to win over the latter to general work for the reformation of our whole life. Our meetings of delegates, in their quality of primary mass organisations, serve these fundamental tasks of the Party.

The forms and methods of work resulting from these general Party tasks of the meetings of delegates, find expression and organisatory corroboration in the new statute of the meetings of delegates which was confirmed by the C.C. on June 19th 1925.

The first and fundamental change in the condition which has hitherto prevailed, is in relation to the place for the organisation of the meetings of delegates of women workers and peasants. If the meeting of delegates is to be a real driving-belt which connects the Party and the masses of workers, it must work under the immediate direction of the Party organisation. The foundations of our Party organisation are the factory and village nuclei; the meetings of delegates of the women workers and peasants should therefore be affiliated to the Party nuclei. Where the total number of delegates exceeds 300, meetings of delegates should also be organised in the individual departments of the factory, that is to say, affiliated to the nuclei of the factory departments. When however it is a case of small works and small groups of working women, the meetings of delegates should be directly affiliated to the district and regional committees of the Party.

The subsequent novelty which arose out of the work of the Party in organising the broad masses of women workers, was an increase in the number of women delegates. Now one delegate is elected for every ten women workers in large factories and one to every three in small ones.

The activity of the peasant women has enormously increased like that of the women workers, the number of delegates has been doubled; cases have occurred in which meetings of delegates of peasant women took place without the help of the local women’s department, as the latter were not up to the task of doing the whole work. The meetings of delegates of peasant women were organised by village Soviets and in connection with nuclei of leagues of youth, schools and hospitals. In the Ukraine, this activity of the peasant women found expression in the organisation of “groups of delegates” which were affiliated to the Soviet.

In the interest of the reconstruction work of the Soviets, this steadily increasing activity of the peasant women had to be directed into suitable channels. Preliminary conditions had to be created in which the initiative of the peasant women would be of the greatest possible benefit to the Party. The new statute provides these preliminary conditions of organisation. According to the new statute, meetings of delegates can be organised by peasant women:

1. In villages where there is a village nucleus or a Party committee of the Wolost (district) or area.

2. In villages where the Wolost committee or the nearest Party nucleus can organise its leadership by means of individual communists or special peasant women organisers.

3. In villages where a town nucleus which has the protectorate over the village can take over the guidance of the meeting of delegates.

The new statute also introduces some changes in the composition of the meetings of delegates of peasant women. Up to now we tried to get as delegates as many widows, agricultural workers, poor peasant women and young girls as possible. As regards the most numerous class of peasant women, the married ones in the middle peasantry, we did not take them into consideration in the election of delegates, so that the idea gradually developed that only poor peasant women and widows could be elected as delegates. This practice is not in keeping with the task set itself by the Party, the formation of a qualitatively strong active cadre of non-Party peasants and peasant women which would form a link between our Party and the innumerable millions of working peasants. Our chief task is now to bring about a close alliance with the main mass of the peasantry and to march forward in their company.

We must try in our daily work to realise this Party task by organising our mass meetings of peasant delegates in such a way that the main mass of the peasant women will take part in them.

This statute has also introduced some changes in the activity of the meetings of women delegates in the East of the Soviet Republic which aim at attracting chiefly working women of the native population to the meetings. In this connection, special attention is to be paid to attracting young women and intellectuals who are in sympathy with the Party.

The statute makes it the duty of the Agitprop department to put the best propagandist forces at the disposal of the meetings of delegates. The statute further prescribes that the meetings of delegates should affiliate a section for maternity and child welfare where one does not exist in the Soviet.

All these enumerated tasks are now on the agenda of the Party organisations and of the Party members working in the women’s branches in connection with the re-elections for the meetings of delegates of women workers and peasants.

The extent of this work is enormous and can only be fulfilled with the participation of the Party as a whole and the support of those delegates whose year of work has come to an end, as well as with the help of the whole mass of women workers and peasants whom we have been able to group round the Party.

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. Inprecorr is an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.

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