The Swiss movement is described by a member of the Communist Party, a doctor and veteran abortion rights activist.

‘The Swiss Working Women’s Movement’ by Minna Tobler-Christinger from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 9 No. 11. March 1, 1929.

In the historical years 1918 and 1919, there were optimists who believed that the working woman was about to emerge from her passivity and to become an active and historically decisive factor in the labour movement. Even greater optimists believed that in the coming struggles the working women would not only take an active part, but a leading one. The immense upsurge of the working women’s movement and the active role played by the working women in the demonstrations and strikes of those revolutionary years, led our active comrades to form this judgment. Developments have proved this optimism to be misplaced. During the last few years the working women have scarcely come to the fore, either as mass or as an active element.

What are the causes of this retrogression, why did the number of women organised in trade unions sink from 44,000 in 1918 to 13,000 in 1926, why is the increase in the number of men organised in trade unions in the last few years accompanied by such a very slight increase in the number of organised women?

First a few facts. All our communist women comrades complain of the difficulty of reaching the working women in the large undertakings. Even those working women who sympathise with the communists are so afraid of dismissal that they have not even the courage to subscribe to the communist women’s paper. And yet it is an indisputable fact that during the last few years the wages of the women workers have fallen rapidly, and that in spite of the legal eight-hour day working hours have been lengthened in almost all undertakings employing female labour, whilst at the same time the intensity of labour has been increased by the so-called rationalisation. On the other hand, we see that at the present time there is practically no unemployment among women, a fact explicable by the general tendency of capitalism to exploit cheap women’s labour wherever possible in place of the dearer men’s labour.

Another fact is the rapid falling off in the birth-rate among the working class. In the towns many working women deliberately renounce the joys of motherhood. The working woman of the city will scarcely ever bring more than two children into the world. Workers’ families with many children are either from backward countries, or from backward agrarian or mountain districts of Switzerland. However reactionary Switzerland may be in other respects, with regard to birth control it takes a foremost place. By means of this limitation of the family, many married couples among the workers succeed in securing for themselves an individually bearable standard of living, the more that under these circumstances both man and wife can be earners.

These individual cases of improved position, however, represent no more than a momentary loophole, incapable of ensuring a permanent betterment of the standard of living in face of the steady reduction of wages, and above all are incapable of preventing the pressure of capital from weighing more heavily year after year. The idea that to keep the family small is the main thing, and is the best means of preventing poverty, exists however in the heads of many working women and workers’ wives, and is therefore a fact which we must take into account.

That the ever increasing pressure exercised by capital encounters no corresponding counter-pressure from the reformist trade unions, is a further fact. It may even be definitely stated that the present leaders of the Swiss trade unions are deliberately neglecting the organisation of the working women; doubtless they are still shaking in their shoes at the remembrance of the masses of the revolutionary women in the war and post-war years. Until a few years ago the Swiss Trade Union Federation still possessed its working women’s secretariat. With the retirement of the last secretary this institution ceased to exist. The rejective attitude of many trade unions towards the co-work of women is demonstrated by a conference of the Swiss Textile Workers Union, at which, we are told, the question was seriously discussed as to whether the women delegates present were to be allowed to vote.

The social democratic standpoint towards the working women’s movement is characterised by the fact that since the split this Party has not issued any women’s newspaper of its own, but at most devotes an occasional page to women’s interests in its daily newspapers, thereby carefully avoiding any reference to class war.

On the other hand, it must be recorded that of late the bourgeois women’s movement in Switzerland has become extremely active. The organisation of the “Saffa”, that is, the Swiss Exhibition of Women’s Work”, has brought great numbers of women, including many working women, under the influence of the bourgeois women’s movement. In some cases all the women employed in a factory have been sent to this exhibition at Berne, where skilful propaganda is carried out for harmony between capital and labour. Of late the bourgeois Women’s Suffrage Union has launched an extensively organised petition for the attainment of women’s suffrage; this is the only bourgeois women’s movement in which the communists take a hand.

The bourgeois women’s movement is further endeavouring to hold the working women back from the class struggle with the aid of innumerable philanthropic institutions; besides this there are many religious sects, which have for decades exercised much influence over the working women of the textile districts.

It is obvious that under this severe bourgeois pressure, and in face of the social democratic reformist inactivity, the work of our communist women comrades is made very difficult. That they still succeed, in spite of all this, in mobilising working women in public meetings, and that it is nevertheless possible for a special communist women’s newspaper to exist, is only made possible by the tenacious and persevering work of our comrades. Indeed, this little band of women comrades forms a centre of comparatively intense activity.

A Red Women’s and Girl’s Association was recently formed, and this may well be called upon to form the bridge between Party comrade and factory worker.

The growing exploitation of the working men and women accompanied by the declining standard of living, must and will arouse revolt among the working women, and it is very probable that the near future will witness this. The emancipation of the working woman from undesired large families brings with it greater independence and earning capabilities, strengthening her self-reliance and will to fight. The ever increasing destruction of family life resulting from economic independence and the necessity of earning, is working objectively as a revolutionary factor. Other factors working in the same direction are the advancing rationalisation and the greater demand for cheap female labour which it brings.

All these factors will have their effect in Switzerland as certainly as they do in other capitalist countries. It is our task to lend an attentive ear to the murmurs of discontent and indignation, and to be ever ready to convert the everyday cares and needs into revolutionary action.

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/1929/v09n11-mar-01-1929-inprecor.pdf