Dying only a few months after the Nazi takeover of Germany, Clara Zetkin’s ‘last message’ was this impassioned appeal to fight fascism and defend class war prisoners through the International Red Aid, for which she was chair.
‘The Last Message of Clara Zetkin’ from Labor Defender. Vol. 9 No. 7. July, 1933.
To all those who work by hand and brain!
To all those who honestly struggle for the progress of humanity and its development to a higher standard!
Focus your attention on Germany where dying capitalism, sensing the threat to its very existence, looks to fascism as its saviour.
Fascism has built a regime of physical and moral destruction, a regime of barbarism, that surpasses in cruelty that of the middle ages. The cry of indignation against the cruel treatment meted out to its victims by the brown terror resounds through the world. Tens of thousands have been thrown in jails, prisons and concentration camps. Other thousands have been brutally murdered. Many have been driven as refugees across the borders, while their children have been deprived of bread and shelter. But in spite of all this the workers are undauntedly, heroically fighting against fascism. Solidarity with the fighting toilers, and relief material in order to assure at least the bare existence for the victims of murderous fascism–this is the most urgent task of the moment for all who think and resent the crimes of bloodthirsty, fascist terror.
The International Red Aid which for ten years has carried on a world wide struggle against terror and fascism, in the name of its 14 million men and women members in all countries, calls upon all and everybody to rally to the International Relief Week for the victims of fascist terror in Germany. The immediate task is to help materially–with money, clothes, food products, shelter care of the children, medical assistance, finding of work, etc. Help is necessary for the political prisoners and their dependents whom they know to be in bitter need; help is necessary for the political refugees who are in other countries without bread or shelter. True to its great historical character, the I.R.A. asks not for alms but for understanding. It does not demand sympathy–it calls for struggle. Our relief action goes hand in hand with the great struggle against the creator of this suffering–against the fascist regime.
Men and women friends. All you who stand ready to work for relief and for the struggle! Sympathizers! I urge you to support the action of the I.R.A. with all your strength and devotion! I urge you to take up as your own cause the cause of the fighters and the sufferers.
Social-democratic men and women workers, men and women members of the reformist trade unions, try, with your unconditional adherence of the fighting Red Front, to atone for the betrayals of your leaders who, with their policy, cleared the way for fascism and are now cowardly kneeling before it.
Toiling women, remember that fascism is depriving you of the rights that you achieved with bitter struggle. Fascism is depriving you of your work and independence. Remember that the “Third Empire” is degrading you to become birth- machines and the “serf-maidens” of your husbands. Do not forget the heroic women fighters whom fascism has thrown behind the prison walls, and who have been martyred to death by fascism.
Men of science, artists, teachers, writers, followers of the fine arts! See the bonfires in which fascism is burning the works of culture that you created and nourished with such great care, and in whose destruction humanity loses a source of spiritual progress. Your aid in the struggle against the monstrous fascist reaction and your material assistance for the victims of fascist terror is an offering to that internationality aspired to by the bright spirit of all the peoples. Fie to the shameful persecution of other races, particularly the indescribable shame of the Jewish pogroms! Toilers of all nations and races! Answer the Jewish pogroms in Germany with the struggle against fascism and the most energetic support of its victims!
Anti-fascists in all countries! I call upon you, together with the International Red Aid, to fulfill your solemnity of international solidarity.
With Red Aid Greetings,
CLARA ZETKIN
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the I.R.A.
Labor Defender was published monthly from 1926 until 1937 by the International Labor Defense (ILD), a Workers Party of America, and later Communist Party-led, non-partisan defense organization founded by James Cannon and William Haywood while in Moscow, 1925 to support prisoners of the class war, victims of racism and imperialism, and the struggle against fascism. It included, poetry, letters from prisoners, and was heavily illustrated with photos, images, and cartoons. Labor Defender was the central organ of the Scottsboro and Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaigns. Editors included T. J. O’ Flaherty, Max Shactman, Karl Reeve, J. Louis Engdahl, William L. Patterson, Sasha Small, and Sender Garlin.
PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n07-jul-1933-lab-def.pdf
