Hail to the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day
It was at the 1910
International Conference of Socialist Working Women in Copenhagen that German
Marxist leader Clara Zetkin first raised the idea of organising an
International Working Women’s Day to mark the important victories of women
workers in the US and to provide a focus for women around the world to organise
public actions. That conference broke vital new ground for the world socialist
movement with its decision that every year, in every country, they should march
under the slogan: “The vote for women will unite our strength in the
struggle for socialism.”
On International Women’s Day in 1917, a massive
strike of women textile workers in Petrograd marched in defiance of the Tsarist
regime’s repressive laws to demand “bread and peace”. It was to become
one of the sparks that lit the February Revolution, which overthrew the
autocracy and paved the way for the Great October Socialist Revolution.
This provided vindication, if any was needed, for
those who had always held that women must be mobilised in the struggle for
socialism, and that it is in their interests to participate in that struggle.
The Petrograd demonstration took place on the last Sunday in February, which
till then had been the date of International Women’s Day. However, due to the
discrepancy between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, it actually took place
on 8 March and, in honour of the heroism of those Russian women, that is the
date that has been marked ever since.
Despite improvements in the status of women in
various imperialist countries, it is still the case that “Women are half the
world’s population, yet they do two-thirds of the world’s work, earn one-tenth
of the world’s income, and own less than one per cent of the world’s property.
They are among the poorest of the world’s poor”. This is admitted by
former World Bank President, Barber Conable. It is only under socialism that
women can hope for their emancipation. This is because in a socialist society
meeting the needs of working people becomes the whole point of all economic
activity – unlike the capitalist system where it serves only the production of
profit for the benefit of a tiny minority of the population. Therefore it is
only under socialism that the facilities can be put in place that relieve women
of the drudgery of household slavery and enable them to take part in every
aspect of society on a fully equal basis with men. This is why it was in the
Soviet Union, the world’s first socialist country, that women were admitted en
masse into every level of education and every kind of profession and it was
first proved that women could do any job that men could do, which had certainly
never been accepted before. Equally, for the revolution to overthrow capitalism
to succeed, all the oppressed and exploited people must be mobilised, including
women. How could any revolution succeed that fails to mobilise no less than
half of those who stand to gain from that success?
In view of the
importance of the question of women’s emancipation to the working class
movement, the present issue of Lalkar is dedicated to the celebration of
the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, celebrating the lives of
outstanding women revolutionaries Claudia Jones and Mme Sun Yat Sen and
reproducing an article from the DPRK celebrating this important anniversary
that demonstrates the organic link between women’s emancipation and socialism.