Clara Zetkin

The Marxists on oppression

The fourth part of a review article looking at the themes of John Riddell’s new book of documents from the early communist movement. The week Paul Hampton looks at how they debated women’s liberation and other issues of oppression. The early Communist International’s focus was on working class self-liberation and this was reflected in the time spent on discussions on party building, work to transform the labour movement and on the specifics of class struggle strategy. But the Bolsheviks had made their reputation as tribunes of the people, taking up any and every matter of injustice and...

Reclaim International Women's Day!

On International Women’s Day, 8 March, Workers’ Liberty women in London helped organise a meeting to celebrate the original, militant tradition of the day. What tradition? International Women’s Day — founded in 1911 as International Working Women’s Day — was first proposed by Clara Zetkin and other socialist women. It was a response to the 1907/8 demonstrations of women workers in New York demanding shorter hours, better pay, union rights and the vote, and to the “Rising of the 20,000”, a 13-week strike of women garment makers in 1909. By 1917 it was well-established enough in the...

International working women's day

I had resolved to avoid reading the Guardian on Tuesday 8 March. I knew they would be publishing a “100 most inspiring women list” on this, the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. And I had no desire to revisit the taste of my breakfast on my way into work. The list had been trailed in the paper some weeks before and promised to include Margaret Thatcher, Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton. Hence the anticipation of nausea. In the event, the list was not as bad as I expected, just boring and predictable. And the Guardian did not bother to enquire about or explain the origins of this...

Clara Zetkin on the workers' government, 1922

"The workers' government", by Clara Zetkin, December 1922. First published in 'Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale', Heft 9/10. Translated by Bruce Robinson. Text from: Clara Zetkin, 'Zur Theorie und Taktik der Arbeiterbewegung' , Reclam Verlag, Leipzig, 1974.

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