The Communist Women’s International, in English for the First Time


Josefina L. Martínez 

July 11, 2023

An Interview with historians Daria Dyakovona and Mike Taber about their new book with documents from the Communist Women’s International

In January 2023, The Communist Women’s Movement, 1920-1922 was published in English by Brill. A paperback edition will be coming in November from Haymarket Books. The book brings together reports, manifestos, and resolutions of the Communist Women’s Conferences, which took place in those years. The work of more than 600 pages, compiled and edited by Mike Taber and Daria Dyakovona, is the product of research, translation, and editing from the Soviet archives.

The book includes minutes and resolutions of the International Women’s Secretariat and the International Conferences of Communist Women, including the First Conference of Communist Women (July–August 1920), the Second Conference of Women (June 1921), the Conference of Women Correspondents (January 1922), the Second Conference of Women Correspondents (October 1922). It also groups together texts that have been hitherto almost unknown, such as those of the Women’s Conference of the Near East (1921), in addition to texts of communist women’s conferences in Germany, Czechoslovakia, France, Bulgaria, the Dutch East Indies, and Soviet Russia.

These texts bring us closer to the debates that took place among the Communist leaders of different countries over successive meetings, in which they aimed to organize the women’s movement under a socialist and revolutionary perspective. They constitute a contribution to discussions of revolutionary feminism for those who want to know its history, and they serve as reflections on the challenges of the present.

A few days ago, our sister groups in Argentina and Brazil released the book Mujeres, revolución y socialismo (Ediciones IPS) / Mulheres, revolução e socialismo (Edições Iskra) simultaneously in several countries. This new publication, which gathers Marxist writings on women’s emancipation, has similar goals as The Communist Women’s Movement, making it a particular pleasure to interview and exchange ideas with Mike Taber and Daria Dyakovona.

I want to congratulate you on the book. It is a very interesting work. Tell us about the research and editing process. There are writings that were previously unknown; they are findings from the archives. Why publish a work like this today?

Mike: The early Communist women’s movement is virtually unknown today. Even most socialists are unaware of its existence. But as the first truly international revolutionary organization of women, it deserves to be recognized both as a pioneer in the fight for women’s emancipation and as a dynamic force in the Communist International (Comintern) under Lenin. We hope that our new book will help restore the CWM to its legitimate place in history.

Eighty to 90 percent of this volume appears for the first time in English. And the largest single item — the proceedings of the Second International Conference of Communist Women in 1921 — has never appeared before in any language. Typed transcripts of the conference proceedings in German, Russian, and English were obtained by Daria from archives in Moscow, where they had been collecting dust for a century. In preparing these transcripts for publication, we used the English version to a large extent, but it was carefully checked and heavily edited against the Russian and German versions.

Other items in the book were translated straight from Russian or German. A number of German-language items were published originally in Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale (KFI), a journal published in Berlin under the editorship of Clara Zetkin. The KFI was one of the most well-written, lively, independent-minded, and far-reaching publications of the entire world Communist movement at the time.

Our volume shows readers another side of the early Communist International. It also provides valuable insights into the 150-year history of the Marxist movement with regard to the fight for women’s emancipation.

Daria: The book also includes a section on the CWM around the world, which brings together articles from the KFI on specific activities and campaigns of revolutionary women in different countries, mostly in Europe but also in Asia. We thought it would be valuable for readers to learn about the situation of women workers in different countries and the particularities of Communist work there. Another important piece in the book is the report of the 1921 Near East Women’s Conference held in Tiflis (today’s Tbilisi, Georgia), where the specific situation of “women of the East” was discussed. I can already see that this topic is of great interest not only to Marxists and feminists, but also to scholars and all those who are interested in Asia, Islam, and women’s participation in public life in historical perspective.

Daria, in the introduction, you point out that the Communist Women’s Conferences took as an example the work done by the Zhenotdel, or the Women’s Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. What do you point out about it?

Daria: The Zhenotdel appeared in August 1919, one year before CWM was founded, under the leadership of Inessa Armand and Alexandra Kollontai. The latter would also become a prominent leader of the international movement. But Kollontai was also immediately after the revolution elected People’s Commissar for Social Affairs within the Soviet government, and in this capacity initiated the revolutionary Soviet legislation that would change the lives of women. Women were recognized as equal to men, and equal pay for equal work was guaranteed to them. Marriage became secular, and divorce was legalized on demand for both men and women. The category of illegitimacy of children was abolished. The Soviet state legalized abortion, which was provided free of charge in state hospitals. At the same time, new decrees introduced paid maternity leaves, public childcare, and schooling, as well as public services that lightened the burden of housework. It is based on this quite ahead-of-its-time legislation that the newly formed Zhenotdel started its activities to further advance political, economic, and social rights of women.

In the early 1920s, the Zhenotdel participated in a whole range of activities that women belonging to different social layers could identify with. It set up public canteens, laundries, nurseries, and kindergartens. It ensured recruiting of women into workplaces and helped to organize unemployed women into cooperatives. It led fruitful campaigns against famine, homelessness, illiteracy, domestic abuse, hooliganism, prostitution, epidemics, and much more.

Mike, in the prologue you point out five major achievements of the Communist women’s movement in its first three years of existence. What can you comment on these?

Mike: What comes through clearly in this book is the multifaceted character of the Communist women’s movement and its activities during the years 1920 to 1922:

It educated around women’s oppression through its journals and activities. This effort served to win women to the Communist movement, as well as to educate both male and female Communists around the issue.

It worked to develop women as fully rounded cadres, building their self-confidence and leadership abilities.

It organized sections or departments within parties devoted to this work, with an important degree of autonomy and independent initiative. These were not “women’s caucuses,” however, and Communist men sometimes participated in them.

It built a formidable team of female Communist leaders around the world, and it served as a vehicle for collaboration between them. Its central figures — Zetkin, Kollontai, and Armand — were outstanding Communist leaders who often fail to get the recognition they deserve.

It organized international political campaigns and encouraged Communist involvement in fights to defend women’s rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose abortion.

The significance of the CWM’s record grows even more in light of the fact that these accomplishments were made in face of resistance from many men in the Communist movement. But Communist women had the support of central Comintern leaders, such as Lenin, Trotsky, and Zinoviev. One can see the real progress that was made over the three years this book covers.

The first women’s conference was held simultaneously with the Second Congress of the International. What were the expectations at the time? What were the main issues under discussion?

Daria: The First Conference of Communist Women was organized in the summer of 1920. The Second Congress of the Comintern was held at the same time, and was perhaps much more significant and vaster in terms of participation and discussions than the founding 1919 gathering. For the revolutionary women, it was the first occasion to get together as an international socialist but also women’s emancipation movement. All the delegates at the conference insisted on the link between the end of capitalism and women’s liberation.

The First Conference elaborated its program drafted by Zetkin — the “Guidelines for the CWM.” The movement was to encourage the equal participation with men in all spheres of life — social, political, economic, and cultural — but also in the actual revolutionary fight. Despite the universalist character of the CWM, its “Guidelines” encouraged the use of specific strategies depending on where the work among women was to be carried out: in socialist, capitalist, or precapitalist countries. For socialist countries, Communist Women insisted on the importance of permanent and relentless struggle aimed at improving the lives of women and effectively enforcing their rights. For capitalist countries, the guidelines encouraged educational work among women, struggle for universal suffrage, and participation in national and municipal governments; the fight for the right of women to equal, unrestricted, and free education; the fight for equal pay for equal work by men and women; the fight for social aid for pregnant women, mothers, and children; fight for reform of housing and health care systems; and transformation of housing into a social industry. In countries still at a precapitalist level of development, the guidelines urged women in the first place to fight to overcome the prejudices, morals, practices, and religious and legal rules that reduced women to men’s slaves at home, at work, and sexually.

The second conference was much bigger, albeit in a different political context. What do you highlight from it?

Mike: The CWM’s second conference in 1921 showcased a vibrant, living movement grappling with the challenges before it.

The conference was a freewheeling affair that included lively debates on issues such as women’s suffrage, the relative weight of working women and housewives, and how fights around specific issues (called “partial struggles”) fit into the overall working-class battle against capitalism.

There were also frequent observations and complaints at the conference about women’s status within the Communist movement, and about prejudices they encountered on the part of some male Communists. Many delegates spoke of the need to confront these prejudices, and how best to do so. Perhaps that’s one reason why the proceedings of this conference were not published at the time — unlike just about every other major Comintern gathering during this period. One can speculate as to whether this conference made a few male bureaucrats nervous and uncomfortable!

At this second women’s conference, debates of the Third Congress were also expressed, on the question of the united front or the “revolutionary offensive.” Zetkin defended the same position as Lenin, but not all the delegates held that position, did they?

Daria: The Second Conference was held in the summer of 1921 and indeed in a different political context from 1920. After the failed revolutionary uprising in Germany in March 1921 (usually referred to as the March Action), the conference, like the Third Congress of the Comintern, featured a debate between the adherents and opponents of the “revolutionary offensive.” The adherents of the policy, including the KPD leadership and many of the German women delegates at the CWM conference, supported the failed March Action in Germany and believed that Communists all over the world should start uprisings even if not supported by proletarian masses. Zetkin, like Lenin and many other Comintern leaders, was one of the sharpest critics of this vision. This ideological division found its way into the debates of the Second Conference, and Zetkin was personally attacked. Passionate debates between the adherents of the two contrasted visions of the path to be taken by the workers also characterized the discussions of methods of work among women, including such questions as the participation of Communists in the general women’s fight for equality and cooperation with liberal feminists as well as the base of the CWM.

I am particularly interested in the debates on work among women in the East. What were the main contributions on this issue?

Daria: The agitation, organization, and education work among the “women of the East” had been on CWM’s agenda since its foundation. Eastern women were considered the most oppressed representatives of the female sex, their social and material conditions — the hardest. In 1921, the CWM established the Woman’s Secretariat for the Near East, which was to coordinate work in Western Asia and Turkey. On December 12, this secretariat held a women’s conference in Georgia. The CWM’s policy on women of the East involved flexibility and sensitivity toward the conditions of life and cultural contexts that these women had to face. Communist Women understood that work among women in the East could not be carried out in the same way as in capitalist countries. In the early 1920s, the accent was put on Eastern women’s grassroots initiatives and cooperation between women belonging to different, including nonproletarian, layers in a united-front perspective. The major goal of such an approach was to attract women into cooperatives and workshops that liberated them economically and could also be used as spaces for agitation. Communist women also helped in setting up the infrastructure that would make “women of the East” integrate into social life: workshops, schools, kindergartens, children’s homes, public dining halls, laundry rooms, libraries, reading rooms, etc.

Mike, you point out that, from 1924 to 1926, the communist women’s movement declined. How does this relate to the consolidation of Stalinism in the USSR and in the Comintern?

Mike: The decline of the Communist women’s movement is definitely connected to the rise of Stalinism. The Comintern’s Fifth Congress in 1924, which marked the beginning of the international movement’s degeneration, outlined a perspective of “Bolshevization,” which led to the complete subordination of Communist parties and auxiliary organizations to the Comintern’s leadership in Moscow. An effort to tame the Communist women’s movement was clearly seen at the movement’s Third Conference in 1924, which was held immediately after the Fifth Comintern Congress.

The first two CWM conferences in 1920 and 1921 had set the movement’s main tasks to be participating in struggles for women’s emancipation; seeking ways and means of involving women in social life and political struggle; recruiting and integrating women into the Communist movement; and advocating affirmative-action measures to advance women inside it. At the Third Conference, however, its responsibilities were largely reduced to simply winning women to the Communist movement.

The CWM’s downgraded status was soon registered in practice. Its leading body, the International Women’s Secretariat (IWS), which had been based in Berlin and led by Zetkin, was transferred back to Moscow in early 1924. Its journal, Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale, was discontinued in 1925. The IWS itself was relabeled the “Women’s Section of the Executive Committee of the Communist International.” The CWM’s Fourth Conference in 1926 would be its last, although the ECCI’s Women’s Section would exist as a largely meaningless body until its formal dissolution in 1935.

The Communist women’s movement’s decline echoed retreats on women’s rights in Soviet Russia under Stalin. Perhaps the best example of this is abortion, which had been decriminalized in Soviet Russia in 1920. This right was taken away in 1936, as abortion was recriminalized.

Daria, you point out that beginning in 1935, the orientation of the Popular Fronts undermined women’s work. In what way?

Daria: Indeed, the shifts in Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s and, perhaps most importantly, the adoption of the Popular Front policy by the Comintern in 1935 affected the work of women. The Comintern then sought alliances with a very large spectrum of anti-fascist political movements, including the center Left and even bourgeois forces, and tried to avoid antagonizing potential allies with its radical gender agenda, such as, for example, abortion, which was recriminalized in the USSR in 1936.

That said, despite the formal dissolution of the CWM and its central secretariat in November 1935, national women’s sections continued to function in most Communist parties. And women there continued the struggle for women’s rights on the national and local levels. During the entire interwar period, Communist women advocated the creation of broader nonparty women’s organizations that would appeal to wider audiences.

Today, people are still fighting for reproductive rights and the right to abortion. How did the Communist women’s movement raise this issue in those years? What legacy does the Communist movement leave for today?

Daria: Reproductive rights were an issue that the Communist Women often discussed, even though the question of abortion was not included into the CWM’s “Guidelines.” In fact, the CWM’s position on abortion was multifaceted. Communist women saw abortion as necessary so long as society was unable to guarantee the material means for a prosperous and happy childhood for all. This did not prevent them from protesting antiabortion laws, which they did in France and even in fascist Italy in the early 1920s. In Germany, Communist women led a campaign against antiabortion laws under a slogan that is still used by proabortion activists around the world: “Your Body Belongs to You.” In Denmark, Communist Women set up the Working Women’s Information Bureau, which provided information on birth control. In Canada, where abortion was then illegal, Communists joined with non-Communist women to demand the decriminalization of fertility control and establishment of mothers’ clinics, which would provide information on contraception and free contraceptives. At the same time, the CWM insisted on the responsibility of the state in protection of motherhood and children and encouraged women to fight for the creation of better legal frameworks and public institutions for working mothers that would facilitate childcare.

As to the legacy of the CWM, more than 100 years after the creation of the movement, abortion is still not a universal right, while maternity leave in many advanced capitalist countries is much shorter than the 16 weeks that the CWM called for. Many other practices, such as childcare facilities at workplace and the freedom to nurse at work, which Communist Women called on the state to introduce, remain an unachieved goal. That said, many countries have adopted and even gone beyond the demands in the sphere of reproductive rights and motherhood protection formulated by the CWM in the early 1920s.

What do these texts offer to the new generations fighting for women’s rights in many countries? You point out that women are still struggling over many of the issues raised by the Communist women’s movement. And also that the texts offer a strategic perspective. Can you explain that?

Mike: Many of the demands raised by Communist women a century ago remain unrealized today and are still issues of struggle: abortion and reproductive rights, childcare, maternal health and facilities, equal pay for equal work, access to education and social services, women’s burden in housework, the sexual double standard, and of course the continuing fight for political and social equality. The continued battles around these questions give added contemporary relevance to the early Communist women’s movement and will be of considerable interest to many readers. One example of such relevance is the article in our book on the fight against the abortion ban in Germany a century ago.

But what the Communist women’s movement above all offers today, as you indicate, are its strategic insights on the fight for women’s emancipation and its relationship to the revolutionary struggle.

One key insight relates to the revolutionary dynamics of the women’s liberation struggle itself. Given the role that women’s oppression and their second-class status play within capitalism, Communist women were absolutely convinced that female emancipation could never be fully achieved under capitalism, and that the working class had to take political power and begin the construction of socialism. Women workers would be among the central fighters in this struggle.

At the same time, Communist women understood that the struggle for women’s emancipation was an integral part of the fight for socialism. It was not to be seen as a diversion from the overall struggle, or viewed as a secondary issue that could be put on the back burner to make way for “more important things.”

These insights, together with the movement’s historical example, deserve study by women’s rights fighters today, as well as by all revolutionary socialists.




Josefina L. Martínez
Josefina is a historian from Madrid and an editor of our sister site in the Spanish State, IzquierdaDiario.es.

ESSAY

DECOLONIZATION IS WOMEN’S WORK

March 8, 1950—International Women’s Day—Marked the Embrace of a Feminist Battle Against Imperialism


The 12-day Asian Women's Conference in Beijing saw attendees from across Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America and "forged a movement for all women to fight against colonialism and demand equal rights with full sovereignty," gender studies scholar Elisabeth B. Armstrong writes. Pictured above is the Korean delegation for the conference. Courtesy of Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College.


by ELISABETH B. ARMSTRONG | MARCH 8, 2023

It was 1950, and the world was in flames: In Vietnam, Iran, Madagascar, Algeria, West Africa, South Africa, Tunisia, Malaya, Burma, and Cuba, wars of counterinsurgency were being waged against colonial powers that refused to leave. Women, with weapons in their hands and the courage to hide soldiers, grow food for the frontlines, and pass messages across their battlefronts, took part in fighting these wars for independence. At the same time, they sought peace, freedom, and women’s rights.

On March 8, International Women’s Day, they erupted in protests to demand an end to imperialism—the starting point for imagining decolonization as a global culture.

Today, corporate sponsors have sought to commodify International Women’s Day and turn it into women’s access to rule like capitalists. But this 1950 fight for decolonization built a culture that—if you look closely—still fuels the revolutionary spirit, and promise, of the day.

International Women’s Day began as a way to join working-class women’s struggles for basic rights to livelihood with middle-class women’s fight for the vote. At the International Socialist Women’s Congress, held in Copenhagen in 1910, German activist Clara Zetkin proposed holding an international women’s day in March. These meetings and demonstrations incited protests, including the Russian Revolution in 1917. From 1922 onward, the day was mostly celebrated as a holiday in the USSR and socialist countries to honor women’s rights gained under socialism.

The need for a decolonial agenda around International Women’s Day arose from the Global South, during the anti-imperialist Asian Women’s Conference held in Beijing, China, in December 1949. There, attendees found solidarity and carried that spirit back home in countless manifestations of anticolonial feminist activism. During those 12 days in Beijing, women from across Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America forged a movement for all women to fight against colonialism and demand equal rights with full sovereignty. Many women from colonized countries had already joined their countries’ battles to crush colonial occupation. They had their own slogans: Bury the corpse of colonialism! If anyone is oppressed, no one is free! And they demanded that women from colonizing countries dismantle their countries’ war machines.

Women at the conference gathered at the National Art Academy tables. Courtesy of Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College.

Attendees took that charge with them when they got back home. Just two weeks after returning from Beijing, for instance, Jeanette Vermeersch, a parliamentarian and member of the French Communist Party, addressed the French parliament to call for the withdrawal of France from Vietnam: “The Vietnamese people are fighting a just war,” she said, “a war in the defense of your aggression. You are fighting an unjust war, a colonial war, a war of aggression.”

Through networks of anti-imperialist and socialist women’s groups, the message of the Asian Women’s Conference traveled around the world. It would be a global, coordinated refusal of imperialism. The conference resolution spread: Celebrate International Women’s Day, a day for working-class women’s struggles, like never before.

When International Women’s Day arrived, it joined together women from all around the world in the anticolonial struggle for their full emancipation, as women from colonizing countries like France and the Netherlands demanded an end to imperialism in solidarity with women from Vietnam, Indonesia, Tunisia, and beyond. This included the demand that women hold equal rights to fully enfranchised men, not the truncated rights of colonized men with negligible rights to vote, apartheid rules of unfree movement, fettered access to jobs, and stolen lands.

The day punctuated ongoing insurgencies by people who were geographically far from each other, but were bound by common occupiers of colonial nations.
When International Women’s Day arrived, it joined together women from all around the world in the anticolonial struggle for their full emancipation, as women from colonizing countries of France and the Netherlands demanded an end to imperialism in solidarity with women from Vietnam, Indonesia, Tunisia, and beyond.

In Mar del Plata, Argentina, leftist women’s groups—such as the Union of Argentine Women and the Women’s Cultural Group—held the Congress for Peace in dozens of cities around the country to evade the authorities (who had banned their activities) and fight for a decent standard of living and political rights. In Brazil, women chose to protest the high-level U.S. economic delegation visiting Rio de Janeiro. They printed 100,000 leaflets and covered the city with 20,000 posters under the name “Protect Brazilian Petrol” to condemn the economic treaty signed with the United States. Their slogans sought peace and an end to U.S. interference in the Brazilian economy—its own form of neoimperialism—and protested the high cost of living.

Across the world, in Damascus, the Union of Syrian Women led a demonstration of women and children to the parliament to condemn war. Their protests were not without cost. Amine Aref Kassab Hasan, who had recently returned from the Beijing conference, was beaten and arrested, along with two other women and a 5-year-old girl. In Homs, another delegate of the Asian Women’s Conference, Salma Boummi, along with five other women and girls were arrested for a similar protest for peace. But in the face of the Syrian government’s violent response, 13 Syrian women’s organizations presented a memorandum to the Constituent Assembly to demand women’s equal rights, particularly equal pay for equal work. Though they were beaten back, the movement pressed onward.

Anticolonial leaders of the women’s movement, like Celestine Ouezzin Coulibaly (familiarly known as Macoucou) and Baya Allouchiche, took the lead in organizing working-class women in their countries, but also in their regions of North Africa and West Africa, respectively.

The Mongolian delegation at the conference. Courtesy of Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College.

In Ivory Coast, Coulibaly toured Sudan, Upper Volta, and Ivory Coast to spread the word after attending the Beijing conference. She described the solidarity of women she witnessed, and she told of the success won by communist women in the People’s Republic of China, who drove out an army that had far greater armaments supplied by the Americans. After touring the region, Coulibaly led demonstrations of thousands of women on International Women’s Day in Grand Bassam, the French colonial capital of Ivory Coast, in protest of police repression and the murder of women who, in December 1949, had demanded the release of political prisoners who fought for independence from French colonial rule.

Like Coulibaly, after Allouchiche returned from the Asian Women’s Conference, she galvanized women in Algeria to join the anticolonial struggle. She toured Algeria and Morocco, spending 12 days in the radical province of Oran, where women were not yet organized. She described a world of solidarity among women, one that refused to buckle under the yoke of colonialism nor the yoke of patriarchy. She dared them to imagine: “the sun that has risen in Beijing will shine for us too!” Her speeches held in the month of February tipped the balance toward solidarity and a wage strike among dockworkers. Only a week before International Women’s Day 1950, over 300 Algerian women joined the strike on the docks of Oran to protest poor working conditions and to refuse to load ships with soldiers and supplies for the colonial counterinsurgency frontlines of Vietnam.

Global anticolonial solidarity required resistance in colonial centers. Delegates from the Netherlands, the United States, France, and England who attended the conference in Beijing took direction and brought colonized women’s struggle home. On the same day as the protests in Syria, Lebanon, Ivory Coast, Argentina, Brazil, and Algeria, Dutch women supported dock workers who refused to load ships with American armaments bound for the Dutch occupation of Indonesia by laying in the road and blocking the trucks from reaching the docks. In Enshede, Dutch women connected Dutch peoples’ high cost of living to the priority given in the national budget for military purposes over the needs of the working population of the Netherlands. Bread not Barracks, they shouted.
.
Formal colonialism fell in the decades after the 1949 Asian Women’s Conference. But economic colonialism continues today. Economic blockades have human rights consequences and debt packages dictate national policies. But women’s struggles for decolonization, peace, and equal rights hasn’t ebbed. If we turn our heads to Latin America, one memorable slogan from strikes held on International Women’s Day—“What they call love, we call unpaid work!”—draws the connections between the debt bondage and the need for women to provide structural networks of care. Femicide, drug trafficking, border policing, and U.S. intervention in Central America and Mexican economies have fueled endemic murders of women and girls. We see inspiration, too, from women in Mexico reacting to this, to join their internationalist call against systemic femicide, for “Ni Una Mas!” (Not One More).

International Women’s Day in 1950 revived the fight for anticolonial, anti-imperialist solidarity on the terms of the people most oppressed. Our regional and national women’s struggles are still global, still marked by economic and political colonialism in new forms. Survival for many is still precarious—we have a strong tradition in International Women’s Day to imagine an alternative future without inequity.


ELISABETH B. ARMSTRONG is a professor of women and gender studies at Smith College. Her latest book, Bury the Corpse of Colonialism: The Revolutionary Feminist Conference of 1949, comes out next week from University of California Press.

Zócalo Public Square.

PKK/YPJ KURDISH FEMINIST DEMOCRACY

Rûken Nexede: Women did not surrender to male-dominated mentality

Rûken Nexede of the KJAR said that the women's struggle in Iran and East Kurdistan continues. Inspired by Öcalan’s philosophy, a great social awakening has taken place.

HEWRÎN CENGAWER
NEWS DESK
Tuesday, 19 November 2024,


East Kurdistan, which is ruled by the Iranian regime, is a focus of women's resistance. The 'Jin Jiyan Azadî' revolution was initiated by the women of East Kurdistan. The region is a place of both determined resistance and the harshest repression. On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November, Rûken Nexede of the Community of Free Women of Eastern Kurdistan (KJAR) spoke about the prospects of women's freedom struggle.


"An unprecedented level of women's struggle"

First, Rûken Nexede paid tribute to the people who lost their lives in the fight against patriarchy and emphasized that the existence of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is the result of the anti-patriarchal women's struggle. She spoke about the special level that the women's struggle has reached today, and said: "Today there is a general women's organization, women are discussing confederalism, they are expanding their knowledge of military organization. Women have reached a level in the 21st century for which we can proudly congratulate them on their resistance and uprisings. With the emergence of the apoist movement, many achievements such as the women's revolution, the military organization of women and the science of women have been realized."

"Women have never submitted to patriarchy"

Nexede added: "Throughout history, women have not submitted to patriarchy either spiritually or intellectually. Through Rêber Apo [Abdulla Öcalan], women returned to their true nature and learned how to fight against the patriarchal mentality, organize themselves and build a free life. The apoist women's movement was organized from this awareness and continues to fight on this basis today. Rêber Apo defined the 21st century as the women's revolution. We are proud of all the women's struggles that have taken place up to now. All of these struggles were fought with great difficulties and sacrifices. This struggle was fought by our martyrs like Heval Roza, Heval Sara and Heval Şîrîn in the prisons, mountains, cities and villages. With their heads held high, women emerged from the darkness with the philosophy of Rêber Apo."

"A free life means true love"

Nexede continued: "Rêber Apo described the personality of free women and men in a way that we can see in the sacrificial attitude of Heval Asya and Heval Rojger. Their willingness to make any sacrifice is so meaningful that we do not know how to appreciate them sufficiently. From the personality and actions of these comrades, we can see that a free life means true love. Therefore, I would like to pay tribute to them once again for the level of freedom they have achieved. The way to honor these martyrs is to also attain this level of freedom. In order to build a free life, all women should adopt these actions."

"Every place that Apoism reaches experiences a change"

Nexede said: "With the 'Jin Jiyan Azadî' revolution, women recognized the lost will and power of the people. At the same time, questions arose for both women and men: Who am I, how do I live, what do I live for and where do I live, what is domination, what is violence? This revolution made everyone question themselves. Artists questioned what their art was for; scientists began to investigate what science was and who it served. There was discussion about the extent to which the state was using science for its own interests. Everyone began to ask questions."

"Fear was defeated"

Nexede said: "Families began to question what family meant, what the roots of the family concept were and what it was for. The predetermined role of women, girls and boys was questioned. Students began to question how they learned things and whether it was for life or in the service of the system. Rêber Apo's philosophy brings about change wherever it reaches. The Iranian regime is currently desperate, it has no more resources and is in crisis. The pressure on society is great. Women and young people are massively oppressed under the guise of religion. But people have now seen the true face of this regime, they are taking a stand and fighting without fear. Although they know they may fall as martyrs, they continue to fight, make no compromises and sacrifice themselves for the freedom revolution."

TJK-E: Let's fill the streets with the slogan

 'Jin Jiyan Azadi'

'WOMAN, LIFE, FREEDOM'

TJK-E called on all women to participate in the actions and events they will hold on the occasion of 25 November International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.


ANF
NEWS DESK
Monday, 18 November 2024, 12:02

The European Kurdish Women’s Movement (TJK-E) issued a written statement on the occasion of 25 November International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

TJK-E said: “We welcome 25 November 2024, with the slogans ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’ rising all around the world. With the great struggles of women who say another world is possible, the patriarchal-statist system is being shaken from its roots today. On the occasion of 25 November International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, we remember with love and respect all women who resisted, worked hard and paid the price on this path, from the Mirabel Sisters to Sara, from Hevrin Xelef to Jîna Amini, who were the expressions of insistence on a free life against the fascist Trujillo regime. Their determination, love and struggle for a free life continues to grow in women’s struggle for freedom today.”

The TJK-E added: “We are going through a time when the Third World War is making itself felt the most. Women are the ones who suffer the most from the reality of war that has seeped into the daily life of society; from the attacks and policies developed by the nation-state, capitalist modernity and the patriarchal system in a multi-layered and multi-faceted manner. The Third World War, which developed as a result of the existence and interests of hegemonic powers, concerns us Kurdish women the most, both because its center is in the Middle East and because misogynist policies are being brought to the top. For this reason, the task of developing our own self-organization, self-policy, self-defense, and creating alternatives in terms of social, economic, cultural and educational aspects, as well as resisting genocidal attacks, is more urgent than ever. This urgency determines the essence of our struggle as Kurdish women.”

We will expand the struggle against attacks

The statement continued: “We, the European Kurdish Women's Movement (TJK-E), are aware that women are targeted in the Third World War, and that women's self-defense must be developed.

We see 25 November as a day when our continuous struggle reached its peak, when women's organization, actions and creations reached their peak.

As Kurdish women living in Europe, we say that we will defeat the trustees who disregard the will of women in Bakur, the execution policies of the Iranian regime, the invasion plans for Rojava, the betrayal in Bashur and isolation in Imrali. On this basis, we call on all women to participate in the actions and events we will hold with great enthusiasm and to make the streets in every country in Europe resound with the slogan “Jin Jiyan Azadi.”

ACTION CALENDAR

The actions and events to be held between November 18-25

Hundreds of men march against violence against women in Qamishlo

Events are being held in many centres in North-East Syria to combat violence against women on the occasion of 25 November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.


ANF
QAMISHLO
Monday, 18 November 2024

On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November, the autonomous region of North and East Syria is holding a series of events over several weeks. This year's activities by the women's associations in the region are under the motto ‘Defend yourselves with the Jin-Jiyan-Azadî philosophy’ and aim to raise awareness in society and empower women through education and high-profile actions.

Hundreds of men took to the streets in Qamishlo and staged a march with slogans condemning violence against women.

The march from Sonî Junction to Martyr Rûbar Junction was participated by hundreds of people from civil society organisations and many institutions of the Democratic Autonomous Administration.



A press statement made on behalf of Kongra Star highlighted Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan’s thoughts on women's struggle and pointed out that society needs free women.

Referring to the meaning of 25 November, Cewahir Osman said, “The ruling forces impose violence on society in the person of women. Violence against Leader Apo (Abdullah Öcalan) is violence against all women. We say enough is enough and we say that you cannot break our will as a people.”

Another speaker, Xufran Tewkeb, who addressed the crowd pointed out that women struggle for freedom all over the world and stated that violence must be rejected.

Xufran Tewkeb stated that Öcalan’s ideas and philosophy are the source of the struggle for women's freedom and emphasised that women will continue this struggle in the strongest way.

Karasu: Violence against women is a social problem


ANF
NEWS DESK
Monday, 18 November 2024

In the third part of this interview, Mustafa Karasu, member of the KCK Executive Council, talked about the upcoming 25 November, International Day Against Violence Against Women, as well as the 27 November, the anniversary of the founding of the PKK.

The first part of the interview can be read here, the second here.

We are currently approaching an anniversary, namely November 25, the International Day Against Violence Against Women. What do you have to say in this context, especially to men?

The women’s issue is, of course, an important cause. Violence against women is a thousand-year phenomenon. Violence against women is a historical phenomenon, and one can say that it is one of the oldest problems of society. In fact, it is the source of all other problems. The source of social problems is domination over women. And what is dominance built on? It is achieved through violence, through many forms of violence against women. Rêber Apo speaks of the woman as the first colony. She was treated like the first colonized nation. And has since then been oppressed for thousands of years.

In this respect, this problem is more than just the fact that many men have oppressed women and many men have killed women. It is a social problem that concerns the whole society. It is a problem that needs to be solved. Without the elimination of violence against women, without the elimination of the policy of violence against women, in other words, without women being free, society cannot be at peace. Society cannot be healthy. Where there is violence against women, society is sick and unhealthy. It is a great humanitarian problem to inflict violence on the mother, the one who gives birth and raises the child. A woman is part of society, half of it, and violence is particularly practiced against her. Of course, this must be opposed. One cannot be a democrat, a human being, a moral person, or a conscientious person without taking a stand against this.

Violence against women is a social problem. There is this approach among men. It is an approach that feeds on male dominance and is related to morality and conscience. Men have that tendency. It has been implemented in their genes for thousands of years. It has become a culture of belittling women and practicing violence against women. Every man must know that this culture has infected him, and he must get rid of this evil, this ugliness. This is a very important issue.

Rêber Apo has paved the way for the women’s freedom struggle, and there have been important developments in Kurdistan. But still, in Kurdish society, men’s understanding of violence against women continues. He has not been able to get rid of all that dirt and rust. If Kurdish youths and Kurdish men say that they are loyal to Rêber Apo, if they talk about the freedom of the Kurdish people and democracy, they should definitely change their approach towards women. Men, patriots need to get rid of this tendency to violence against women. Otherwise, their patriotism is incomplete. One cannot be a true patriot, democrat, or freedom seeker; one cannot be conscientious or moral if one doesn’t work on getting rid of this.

The issue of violence against women is important. And when I say violence, I mean it in any aspect. Even raising one’s voice against a woman is violence. Generally, men raise their voices to women when something happens. This is a tendency of masculinity, a tendency to dominance. But there are so many more forms of violence, restriction in social life, not seeing women as equal, exclusion, etc.

On the occasion of the approaching November 25th, I commemorate the Mirabal sisters with gratitude and respect. November 25th has become a day of struggle against violence, and it is having a great impact. It has spread to the world. On this occasion, I condemn all violence against women, and I call on all patriots and democrats to fight against violence against women. All patriots in Kurdistan must avoid violence when approaching their wives, children, daughters, and sisters. This is true patriotism.

Another anniversary is also slowly approaching, the founding day of the PKK, on November 27. For decades, it has been said that the PKK is on the verge of being crushed, but again and again it continues to develop and emerge stronger as before. What can you tell us about this, or about the approaching anniversary in general?

The founder of the PKK is Rêber Apo. Rêber Apo founded, developed, and brought the PKK to the present day on the basis of an ideology that has continuously developed and sustained itself from the first to the present day, that is, on the basis of an ideology that integrates itself with society, integrates itself with the people, integrates the struggle, in other words, ensures that the society embraces the people. It has been 46 years now, and there have even been more before that. For more than 50 years, a struggle has been going on. This has created a culture. The PKK is no longer just an organization or a political party.

Today, the PKK is a social culture, a social mentality, a part of society. In other words, society has also become the PKK. That’s why society constantly chanted slogans like “PKK is the people, the people are here.” This is the reality. It is no longer possible to separate the PKK from the Kurdish people. It is not possible to separate it from Kurdish history. It is not possible to separate it from Kurdish culture. The PKK’s survival at this level, its strong existence despite all the attacks, is the result of this. The PKK is a power beyond its current concrete strength. If the attacks against the PKK fail to achieve results, it is because the PKK is a bigger force than it appears. It is a movement deeply rooted in society.

The PKK has always gotten stronger, is getting stronger, and will get stronger. The PKK is the organized form of Rêber Apo’s thought. Rêber Apo’s thought is a thought that will no longer determine the present but the future. The PKK, which is its organized form, will continue its influence in the future. It has militants like Asya Ali and Rojger Helin. These are the values they have created. There is prison resistance; there is the women’s movement. As Rêber Apo said, the PKK is a women’s party. It is a party shaped on values that we cannot list here. It is delusional to think that the PKK can be destroyed through these and those attacks. That is why the reality of the PKK is a reality that needs to be further researched and analyzed.

The PKK has become a reality beyond us. This needs to be seen. If the PKK were just material assets, concrete realities, the PKK would not be able to survive under so many attacks. The PKK has a spirit that keeps it alive. That power, which is beyond its concrete existence, beyond its material existence, sustains the PKK. It keeps us constantly struggling, and by struggling, we constantly yield results. This cannot be prevented by any attack. On this basis, I salute Rêber Apo once again with gratitude and respect for creating such a party. I also remember with gratitude and respect all our martyrs who have brought the PKK to this day. The PKK will struggle by adhering to their memory and will realize their aspirations.

SYRIAN KURDISTAN









Kongra Star: Together, we are writing a new chapter in the history of resistance

Kongra Star released a message of solidarity on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, saluting every woman who stands up against injustice: “Let us make this century the century of women’s freedom and empowerment."


ANF
NEWS DESK
Thursday, 21 November 2024, 15:19

The Democratic Political Alliances and Relations Committee of the Kongra Star, the umbrella organization of women in North-East Syria, sent a message of solidarity to women's movements and feminist movements around the world on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, November 25.

The message released by the Kongra Star Democratic Political Alliances and Relations Committee on Thursday includes the following:

“To all women’s movements and feminist movements around the world,

On this day when women’s voices unite to defend their dignity and their right to a safe and free life, we write to you with a spirit of resilience and struggle.

On November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, we wholeheartedly salute every woman who stands up against injustice – whether in her home, on the streets, behind prison bars or on the front lines of resistance. We salute the women who are defending freedom all over the world: from Palestine, where women are resisting the brutality of occupation, to India, where they are fighting for equality, from war-torn Sudan, where women are bearing the brunt of conflict and injustice, to Iran and Eastern Kurdistan, where women are holding up the flag of resistance despite oppression.

Systematic violence against women stems from the patriarchal mindset, which is at the root of all forms of violence – be it exploitation, forced occupation, enslavement or massacre. Therefore, the fight against this violence must aim to overcome the patriarchal system itself. This system, which is reinforced and perpetuated by the state, continues to reproduce violence against women at all levels.

The patriarchal system wages a special kind of war against women. Targeting their achievements and hard-won rights, it seeks to incorporate women’s movements into its framework, depriving them of leadership and denying them true liberation.

We live in the shadow of an undeclared Third World War in which women are the main targets of a multi-layered struggle that threatens their existence and seeks to silence their voices. The Third World War is not just a military conflict, but a systematic war that is directed against life in all its aspects. It destroys culture, nature and fundamental human values. Faced with this global threat that endangers our existence as individuals and peoples, it is our duty as women to oppose this organized violence that is directed against life, identity and hope.

Under the slogan “With the philosophy of women, life, freedom – protect yourself”, we stand today in Rojava and in North and East Syria and affirm that the present moment calls for unity and increased solidarity among women. It is now more important than ever for women’s movements worldwide to unite and build self-protection mechanisms to counter the attempts of oppressive forces.

The women’s revolution in Rojava/North and East Syria is an evolving process that continues despite numerous challenges. This revolution, in which women are an important and leading force, is under constant attack – especially from the fascist Turkish state, which positions itself as the enemy of women and aims to crush this movement striving for freedom and equality. They want to destroy everything we have built, but we know that a revolution led by women is a revolution that cannot be defeated. It will continue until its goals are achieved.

This call is a renewed commitment to the path of struggle – a pledge to work hand in hand to create networks of support and solidarity that challenge oppression and ensure that women’s voices remain powerful and unyielding. We pledge to stand with every woman who stands up against injustice, every woman who resists oppression, and every woman who demands her rights in a just society and a dignified life.

As Kongra Star, we know that protecting the women’s revolution requires strengthening independent organizations and self-defense mechanisms. We believe that this moment is a historic opportunity to forge a global alliance that resists all attempts at subjugation and highlights the fact that the voice of women is stronger than the forces of darkness.

To all revolutionary women, to all women who cling to their dreams despite oppression, and to all who confront violence in every corner of the world, we assure you that you are not alone. Together, we are writing a new chapter in the history of resistance, striving to build a future where women’s freedom and dignity are inviolable rights.

Let us continue the struggle, strengthen our unity, and make this century the century of women’s freedom and empowerment.”

YPJ Central Headquarters for Women’s Protection inaugurated in Heseke

“As we approach November 25th, women need the knowledge of women’s science and defense more than ever. Without knowledge, struggle, and protection, we cannot safeguard our existence,” said YPJ General Commander, Rûhalat Afrin.


ANF
HESEKÊ
Thursday, 21 November 2024

The Central Headquarters for Women’s Protection was inaugurated with a grand military ceremony attended by the mothers and families of martyrs, leaders of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Asayish forces, representatives of the Autonomous Administration, the Star Congress, Women’s Core Protection Forces, along with our Armenian and Assyrian comrades, as well as fighters and leaders of the Women’s Protection Forces (YPJ).

During the fourth conference of the Women’s Protection Units, one of the most significant decisions made was to rebuild anew. Based on this decision, the Central Headquarters for Women’s Protection was inaugurated in a military ceremony that began with a moment of silence in honor and respect for the martyrs of the freedom revolution. General Commander of the Women’s Protection Units, Rûhalat Afrin, delivered a speech during the ceremony.

In her speech, Rûhalat Afrin congratulated Leader Abdullah Öcalan, the martyrs of the revolution, and all peoples, women, and fighters. She stated: “Important decisions were made at the fourth conference of the Women’s Protection Units. One of these decisions was to centralize the operations of women’s protection. All women urgently need to organize themselves against all forms of occupation, violence, and oppression. They must unite under the banner of defense and, with the philosophy of ‘Women, Life, Freedom,’ strengthen themselves in all areas of defense.”

Rûhalat Afrin also highlighted the efforts of the revolution’s martyrs, saying: “In the 13 years since 2011, we have witnessed hundreds of heroic epics. The struggle and sacrifices of the martyrs have stood firm against occupiers and have established a tremendous legacy for women and martyrs. Women must organize and protect themselves based on this great legacy.

We are currently experiencing a third world war at its highest intensity in the Middle East. In the face of this war, we must adopt a strategic perspective on the tasks of defense and protection. With women leading the way based on self-defense principles, all peoples must organize themselves and fulfill their responsibilities.

As we approach November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, women need the knowledge of women’s science and defense more than ever. Without knowledge, struggle, and protection, we cannot safeguard our existence.”

She further explained the role of the Central Headquarters for Women’s Protection, stating: “The headquarters will undertake the mission of protection for all components of northeastern Syria and all women. On this basis, women will be organized under the umbrella of legitimate defense. In this context, we will share our experiences and knowledge with women in the Middle East and worldwide. We will escalate the struggle to protect the values and gains of the revolution, regardless of the cost.”

In conclusion, Rûhalat Afrin addressed the increasing internal and external attacks, particularly the growing threats from ISIS mercenaries, Al-Nusra, and the occupying Turkish state in recent times. She stated: “We will prepare ourselves at all levels and intensify our legitimate resistance until we achieve certain victory. On this basis, we call on all women and peoples to join the ranks of steadfast resistance.”

After the military ceremonies, celebrations began, where mothers of martyrs, including the mother of martyr Jindar (Hamida Koti) and the mother of martyr Khabat Turkman (Khola Mohammed), spoke. They congratulated all women on the inauguration of the Central Headquarters for Women’s Protection and emphasized that women of all ages would take on the mission of protecting the homeland.

Messages of congratulations were read during the celebration, and the cultural group Hilal Zirîn (Golden Crescent) stirred enthusiasm with their beautiful and heartfelt performances. The celebration concluded with the traditional dances of the brave female fighters.

WE NEED SUCH A MOVEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN AGAINST THE TALIBAN

Women fighters of the 1871 Paris Commune

08/03/2024

Barricades erected by the Commune in April 1871. 

Photo: Pierre-Ambroise Richebourg/CC (uploaded 31/03/2021)

In the Paris Commune in 1871, for a brief but heroic few weeks, the working class took power for the first time in history. In the immortal words of Karl Marx, the masses ‘stormed heaven’. In extremely hazardous circumstances, Parisian workers attempted to re-organise society, to abolish exploitation and poverty, before falling beneath a vicious counter-revolution. Cecile Rimboud, Gauche Révolutionnaire (CWI France) outlines the key role that working-class women played in this historic struggle.

If the development of a society can be judged by the extent to which women are involved in it, that is certainly the case with a revolution. In 1871, women – especially women workers – played a huge role in the Paris Commune, despite significant hindrances. These heroic women workers swept aside forever the idea that their emancipation could happen outside of the class struggle.

Women’s labour had already played a very important role in industrial production in the 1860s in France and it had developed very rapidly. In 1871, 62,000 jobs out of 114,000 industrial jobs were held by women. Many thousands of female workers worked outside of industry – as home-based workers, laundresses, day labourers (cleaners). Women, as well as child labourers, were very poorly paid, earning a lot less than men, and this was used by the bosses to drive all wages down.

Women workers had to suffer horrendous sexual harassment from the bosses, and from some of their male co-workers, in the factories and workshops; sexual blackmail over employment was common. The wages were so low that many women had to prostitute themselves. In her Mémoires, one of the Commune’s most famous figures, Louise Michel, wrote: “The proletarian is a slave and the most enslaved of all is the wife of the proletarian. And what about women’s wages? Let us talk a little about that: it is no more than a decoy”. Women workers’ conditions were truly atrocious.

Victorine Brocher, a boot-stitching worker who was very active in the defence of Paris later, wrote in her Memoirs of a Living-Dead Woman: “I saw poor women working twelve and fourteen hours a day for a derisory salary, having old parents and children whom they had to leave behind, locking themselves up for long hours in unhealthy workshops where neither air nor light nor sun ever penetrates, for they are lit with gas; in factories where they are shoved in like herds of cattle, to earn the modest sum of two francs a day, earning nothing on Sundays and holidays”.

“Often, they spend half the night repairing the family’s clothes; they would also have to go to the wash-house to wash their clothes on Sunday mornings. What is the reward for these women? Often anxious, she waits for her husband who has been lingering in the neighbouring drinking den and only comes home when three quarters of his money has been spent… The result: abject poverty or prostitution”.

During the final years of the Empire, some women workers had been agitating against these terrible conditions. The most politically advanced of them, who would later rally to the International Working Men’s Association (IWMA – the first international), started to be active in trade unions. Nathalie Le Mel, a Breton binder and leader in the binders’ union, joined the IWMA after the 1865 strike that won equal pay, regardless of sex, for Parisian binders.

Reactionary views

These activists had many opponents, and they were not only bosses. The majority of the workers’ movement then, including the politically heterogeneous IWMA, did not support women workers. Amongst others, Jean-Baptiste Proudhon, a self-declared anarchist and member of parliament after the 1848 revolutionary upheavals, had a very reactionary position. Proudhon theorised that women were inferior to men.

In Justice in the Revolution and the Church (1860), Proudhon scandalously wrote: “In itself, the woman has no reason to exist; she is an instrument of reproduction… The woman remains… inferior to the man, a sort of medium between him and the rest of the animal kingdom… The man will be the master and the woman will obey”.

The common position that “women should stay at home” was defended by the majority of the French delegation at the IWMA Congress of 1866, although some leaders, like Eugène Varlin and Antoine Bourdon, opposed this. They moved a resolution at the Congress stating that: “Women need to work to live honourably, therefore, we must seek to improve their work instead of abolishing it”. The resolution was defeated. The French workers’ movement then was not defending better conditions for women workers but the abstract call for the ‘abolition’ of women’s labour. In this regard, Varlin and Bourdon’s resolution was progressive. Such figures in the French workers’ movement, not least Marxists, played a key role in the struggle for women’s rights.

Léodile Champaix, who took the alias André Léo, was a member of the IWMA at that time, and a writer. She commented: “On this question, revolutionaries become conservative”. She pointed out how ironical it was for those who pretend to struggle for freedom to defend “a small kingdom for their personal use, each in their own homes”.

This reactionary view remained the dominant position in the workers’ movement, as well as amongst the majority of the working class of France, at the time. Hypocritically, the dominant ideology condemned women’s labour and demanded of women to be mere housewives deprived of all rights. At the same time, society rendered this role impossible for working-class women: they were already drawn into heavy industry and suffered terribly from exploitation and poverty.

Opposing bourgeois views

In the second part of the 1860s, strikes over pay took place throughout the country. Here and there, papers and journals were published to discuss women’s rights. One example was the bi-monthly Women’s Rights. It aimed at discussing “the moral, intellectual and civil emancipation of women – as daughters, as wives and as mothers” but not financial emancipation, and not women as workers!

These journals were mostly produced by bourgeois men and women, who did not encourage women, in general, to organise or take political action. On the contrary; in July 1869, the Women’s Rights newspaper commented: “We do not tell them [women] that the time has come for them to claim their share of those political rights … because their education has not prepared them for the special virtues required for political action”. How wrong were they proven to be by the heroic action of the Parisian women workers not two years after this outrageous declaration.

On the other hand, Karl Marx and scientific socialists had always supported the rights of women and women workers. And although they were in a minority in France at the time, they did everything they could to aid women workers to organise and fight. This was not only for emancipation and equality but for the workers’ movement to change their position and defend the women of the working class.

A young collaborator of Marx was Elisabeth Dmitrieff. She was an activist in Russia before immigrating to Switzerland where she helped found the Russian section of the IWMA. She was only 21 years-old when she went to Paris to build support for the ideas of scientific socialism, particularly among women. The emancipation of women, she maintained, would happen through the emancipation of the whole proletariat. One of the tasks was thus to stir up the class consciousness of Parisian women workers to draw them into the revolutionary fight.

Female socialists were not concerned only by matters regarding the condition of women workers. The activists, members of the IWMA, and others were also among those who were most serious about the success of the Commune itself.

André Léo, for instance, was relentless in her attempts at convincing the people of Paris and members of the Commune that the isolation of the struggle in Paris and the alienation of the peasantry would be fatal. On 9 April 1871, she wrote: “In the provinces, there is danger, there is a disaster. Paris at this moment hates and curses the provinces and the provinces hate and curse Paris. A mountain of lies and calumnies has been raised between them”.

Together with Auguste Serrailler, a member of the IWMA and the Commune, Léo worked, alas unsuccessfully, to get a decree passed on the abolition of mortgage debts, which would have raised great support among the peasantry: the mortgage debts of small landowners had skyrocketed to a total of 14 billion francs.

Women in military defence of Paris

In his famous narrative, History of the 1871 Commune, Pierre-Olivier Lissagaray wrote that on 18 March, the beginning of the insurrection, when the new capitalist government of Adolphe Thiers had abandoned Paris after France had been defeated in war by Prussia: “Women were the first to act, as in the days of the [1789] revolution… Those of the 18 March, hardened by the siege, did not wait for the men – they had had a double ration of misery”. Women started organising quickly. A battle was waged for women to be officially incorporated into the military defence of Paris.

Of course, women had not waited for any official orders to defend Paris and the revolution; thousands had already participated in its defence during the siege by the Prussian army. Several female defence organisations were established. Louise Michel, André Léo, and others organised ‘ambulances’ (paramedic services), and the distribution of food and clothes.

On 8 May, Léo, in a quite pessimistic article entitled The Revolution Without the Woman, protests against the hostility of the National Guard commander General Dombrowski and others to integrating the women paramedics of Montmartre in the army and on the outposts: “Do you know, General Dombrowski, how the revolution of March 18 was made? By women. At early dawn, troops had been sent to Montmartre. The small numbers of National Guard who guarded the cannons of the Saint-Pierre square were taken aback, and the cannons were being removed”. Louise Michel related: “Women covered the cannons with their bodies”.

Lissagaray writes: “The attitude of the women during the Commune was admired by foreigners and infuriated the Versaillais”, those in Versailles where the Thiers government had withdrawn to. Ten thousand women workers fought during the ‘Week of Blood’. The Twelfth Legion of the Commune even had a female contingent.

The Women’s Association

Several women’s organisations were created in the heroic days of the Paris Commune. Most notably on 11 April the Union des Femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés (Women’s Association for the defence of Paris and care of the wounded), was created. Its members had put themselves at the disposal of the Commune and were ready to “fight and conquer, or die”.

On the founding of the Union des Femmes, a manifesto was published in the form of an address to the Executive Commission of the Commune, published in the Official Journal of the Commune on 13 April. The address stated: “The Commune represents great principle in proclaiming the annihilation of all privilege, of all inequality, and by the same (principle) is thus committed to taking into account the just claims of the entire population, without distinction of sex – a distinction created and maintained by the need for antagonism on which the privileges of the dominant classes are based”.

It demanded the necessary means of organisation for women to be able to be truly involved in the revolution, such as rooms in each district where they could meet and organise their political activity.

This was agreed to by the Commune. Louise Michel is one of the most well-known figures of the Commune. But it is worth noting that even if she demonstrated great bravery, her political views were not socialist and she, therefore, did not play any role in the attempts to form trade unions or women workers’ organisations like the Union des Femmes. This was very active and well organised and was mainly led by women workers who displayed tremendous courage.

On 18 May, the Association’s executive commission was still convening an assembly of women with its famous Call to Women Workers. The aim was to constitute trade union branches, whose elected delegates would, in turn, form the Federal Chamber of Women Workers. The Association, with its headquarters in the beautiful town hall of Paris’s Tenth Arrondissement (an administrative district), held daily meetings in all arrondissements and organised about 300 members.

Elisabeth Dmitrieff, in particular, was aiming at using the Women’s Association to encourage the political organisation of women in the IWMA to fight for socialism. Despite the absence of women in the Commune itself, in some arrondissements women had been integrated into the administration; in the Ninth Arrondissement, a woman named Murgès sat on the council.

The Women’s Association waged a ferocious struggle against bourgeois women who, through posters and papers, espoused defeatist and demoralising propaganda. On 3 May, a poster stated: “Women of Paris, in the name of the fatherland, in the name of honour, finally in the name of humanity, demand an armistice!” – in other words, accept the rule of the capitalist government in Versailles.

The Women’s Association responded on 6 May with a poster: “It is not peace, but war at all costs that the workers of Paris come to demand… The women of Paris will prove to France and to the world that they too will know… how to give their blood and their lives, like their brothers, for the defence and triumph of the Commune!… Then, victorious, able to unite and agree on their common interests, men and women workers, all in solidarity, by the last effort, will destroy forever all vestiges of exploitation and exploiters!”.

Huge inspiration

Many very progressive measures for women, albeit short-lived, were gained during this two-month long revolution. The closure of brothels was won. The Commune banned prostitution, considered as “a form of commercial exploitation of human creatures by other human creatures”. Common-law partnerships were officially recognised. Widows of National Guardsmen killed in action were granted the payment of a pension, whether officially married to them or not, and their children, whether legitimate or ‘natural’, were recognised on the basis of a simple declaration.

Women pleading for separation from partners could also be granted the payment of a pension. Education and childcare were revolutionised. The church and the state were separated, hospitals and schools were also made secular. Male and female teachers won equal pay.

The most important concern was the shortage of work. All the women’s associations demanded work from the head of the Commune’s Labour and Trade Commission, Léo Frankel. He endorsed the proposals of the Women’s Association, including the requisitioning of abandoned workshops and the organisation by the Women’s Association of cooperative workshops for women to work in. Dmitrieff, in particular, was afraid that if the Commune failed to take bold measures to employ and provide living wages for women, they would “go back to a passive and more or less reactionary state that the previous social order had created – fatal and dangerous for revolutionary interests”.

Tragically, all the progressive measures were cut across by the bloody onslaught on Paris from Versailles starting on 21 May.

Women fought heroically during the Paris Commune and its ‘Week of Blood’ at the end of May. As Karl Marx put it: “The real women of Paris showed [themselves] again – heroic, noble and devoted… joyfully giving their lives on the barricades and on the place of execution”. The editor of the newspaper, Le Vengeur, commented: “I’ve seen three revolutions, and, for the first time, I’ve seen women getting resolutely involved, women and children. It seems that this revolution is precisely theirs and that by defending it, they are defending their own future”.

Thousands had died during the ‘Week of Blood’, but the heroism persisted. “Defeated but not vanquished”, were the words of Nathalie Le Mel, deported to New Caledonia along with Louise Michel and thousands of others. How impressed we can be, seeing such determination! The fight of the scientific socialists like Dmitrieff and others to form women workers’ organisations in the face of such adversity is truly an example and a treasured jewel in the armoury of the world workers’ movement.

What a tremendous source of inspiration the Paris Commune and these women can provide for all those today who seek to end discrimination and exploitation of women and all the oppressed! The women of the Commune began to show the way. The emancipation of women can be achieved only through a common, united struggle of the working-class – men and women alike – aiming at freeing labour from capital and in this way ending all forms of exploitation.

Vatican summit praises women's leadership, but stops short on women clergy

Joshua McElwee
Sat, October 26, 2024 






VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A major Vatican summit of global Catholic leaders ended on Saturday with a call for women to be granted more leadership roles in the Church but stopped short of calling for women to be ordained as clergy.

The gathering, which included cardinals, bishops and lay people from more than 110 countries, also did not take a stand on inclusion of the LGBTQ community, despite discussion that it might call on the Church to be more welcoming.

Pope Francis called the month-long summit, known as a Synod of Bishops, to consider the future of the worldwide Church. It was the second of two gatherings, held a year apart, and featured closed-door discussions among 368 "members" with voting rights, including nearly 60 women.

Advocates for greater roles for women in the Church had hoped the synod might call for women to serve as deacons. In its final text, the synod did not move forward on that possibility, but said "there is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church".

The question of women deacons, the document said, "remains open" and "discernment needs to continue".

The Catholic Church has an all-male clergy and Pope John Paul II declared it had no authority to ordain women as priests. But church historians say there is evidence that in earlier centuries women served as deacons - ordained ministers who, unlike priests, cannot celebrate the Mass.

Francis, 87, has previously created two Vatican commissions to consider ordaining women as deacons. The issue is one of 10 subjects in the synod's discussions that he has assigned for further study to groups that are to report to him by next June.

The synod's final document, a 52-page text approved by the assembly late Saturday afternoon, also called for lay Catholics to be given a greater voice in the selection of bishops, and apologised several times for the "untold and ongoing" pain suffered by Catholics who were abused by clergy.

The text's 155 paragraphs each required a two-thirds vote for approval. The paragraph on women deacons received the most no votes, 258-97, but still passed.

NO MENTION OF LGBTQ CATHOLICS

The text did not mention the LGBTQ community, though it made a veiled reference to people in the Church who "experience the pain of feeling excluded or judged because of their marital situation, identity or sexuality".

Treatment of LGBTQ Catholics had been a hot point of debate in the 2023 synod, with reports that some members offered emotional personal testimonies in the assembly about family members who feel excluded from the Church.

Rev James Martin, a prominent American Jesuit priest who ministers to the LGBTQ community and was a synod member, said it was "not a surprise" the new text did not specifically mention the group.

"We talk about the pain of those who feel excluded," he said of the final text. "The dialogue around LGBTQ issues was much easier this year".

Francis had been expected to issue his own document responding to the synod text, but he told the assembly he was no longer planning to do so. The pope said he instead wanted to offer the synod's text as a "gift" to the world's 1.4 billion Catholics.

The pope is due to formally close the synod gathering with a Mass on Sunday in St. Peter's Basilica.

(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by David Holmes)

Pope closes Synod but questions over women's role in the church remain

Euronews
Sun, October 27, 2024 

Pope closes Synod but questions over women's role in the church remain


Pope Francis concluded the Synod of Bishops on Sunday, leaving the role of women in the Church unresolved. The final document offered no steps toward greater equity, with issues such as female deacons, married priests, and LGBTQIA+ discussions notably excluded.

Despite the omissions, the document reflects the Pope’s aim for a Church that listens attentively to its faithful. In a surprising move, however, Pope Francis chose not to publish the full document, leaving the matter of women’s role open-ended and fostering speculation on the Church’s stance on gender inclusivity.

Reforms on Women’s roles stalled

Deacons, who perform duties similar to priests such as baptisms, weddings, and funerals (but cannot lead Mass), have traditionally been men.

Advocates for change argue that allowing women to join the diaconate would help address the global priest shortage. Opponents worry that such a step might lead to women entering the all-male priesthood, something Pope Francis has said he does not support.

Conlusione dei lavori sinodali, Città del Vaticano, 26 ottobre 2024 - Gregorio Borgia/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved

“The time is not ripe,” Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, the Vatican’s top doctrinal official, said earlier this week in his address to the extraordinary assembly of 368 bishops and lay participants, including women.

Yet the ambiguity surrounding what constitutes ‘maturity’ for expanded roles of women in the Church administration remains.

Women not 'second class believers'

The synod had raised hopes for reform, particularly among women who feel relegated to a marginal role within the Church. Many feel their contributions are undervalued, and they are treated as “second-class” believers.

“We hear so many promises, yet see little meaningful progress,” said Patrizia Morgante, president of the Women for the Church Association. “I’m tired of hearing that women are the ‘heart’ of the Church. These are empty consolations we don’t need.”

Voicing her frustration with the Church’s lack of decisive action, Morgante said: “We want to be respected as individuals, not as functions. We want to discuss our experiences and have genuine dialogue in an equal relationship with men, whether consecrated or lay,” she added.

The Pope has shown openness to greater roles for women – but there’s pressure for him to go further
Christopher Lamb and Antonia Mortensen, CNN
Sun, October 27, 2024 at 10:41 a.m. MDT·4 min read



A sense of urgency has been growing after the role of women emerged as a dominant theme when Catholics from across the globe were canvassed for their views ahead of a meeting of bishops and lay people – a synod – which formally concluded Sunday.

The final Synod assembly document, approved by Pope Francis, said women must be given all the opportunities that church law provides to act as leaders, but left the possibility of ordaining women as deacons as an “open” question which needs further reflection.

Frustrations about the slow pace of reform bubbled into the open during the assembly when the pope’s doctrine adviser ruled out ordaining women as deacons and then failed to turn up to a meeting on the topic. He later apologized and held a 90-minute meeting with members of the assembly.

Some are unimpressed by what they see as the Vatican kicking the topic of deacons into the long grass.

Phyllis Zagano, a research professor at Hofstra University in New York and expert on female deacons, said that “there is abundant evidence of the sacramental ordinations of women as deacons in the Church, East and West, to the 12th century” and that “eventually a decision must be made.”

Francis has also faced criticism recently for expressing what one Belgian Catholic university denounced as “reductive” views on the role of women in the church. In an interview earlier this year, he ruled out the possibility of ordaining women deacons, who can carry out functions like a priest apart from saying Mass and hearing confessions.

The problem in the church is exacerbated given women make up a majority of churchgoers while an all-male hierarchy controls decision making. Furthermore, Catholic teaching bars women from ordination to the priesthood, a decision that Francis has maintained, although he has allowed studies of female deacons.

During previous papacies the question of ordaining women was not even up for discussion. The big difference now is that the 87-year-old Argentinian pontiff has shown he is willing to listen carefully to the voices of Catholics.

In a significant move, Francis, for the first time, said he would not issue a teaching document following the Vatican synod recommendations and approved their decisions, giving them added authority. “It’s a revolution that no one notices,” one cardinal told CNN afterwards about the pope’s move.

Pope Francis attends the second session of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod at the Vatican on Saturday. - Gregorio Borgia/AP

During his pontificate, Francis has also been trying to make cracks in the Vatican’s glass ceiling. He has chosen women to senior positions in the church’s central administration, including a religious sister to help run the synod and the first women members to sit on the board of a powerful Vatican department that decides on bishop appointments.

For the first time, women were also included as voting members, with 54 female voters among more around 360 delegates. One of those was Julia Oseka, 23, who is studying theology and physics at St Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is the youngest woman ever to be a voting member of a Vatican synod.

“There’s definitely an urgent need to not only realize and accept that women have an equal baptismal dignity to men in the Catholic Church, but also to take action,” she told CNN.

Oseka added that while she sometimes felt “frustrated” about the “slow pace” of decisions, some parts of the church “struggle” when it comes to the inclusion of women, and it was important to maintain unity.

Francis’ approach is also informed by the resistance to any reform to women’s roles: The declaration from the Vatican assembly on women received 97 “no” votes, the most of any section in the final document.

“There is resistance because there is still fear of this co-responsibility in the Catholic Church. But the participation and the role of the women is really a key issue,” Helena Jeppesen-Spuhler, a church worker from Switzerland and voting delegate, told CNN.

She said the pope had recognized that the question of female deacons cannot be “closed” and that it was important for the Catholic Church to send a message to the world where there is rising discrimination and violence against women. “If we don’t take a strong stand, it’s contradicting our own message,” she said.

For some, the pope and church leaders are not going far enough. “Women are looking for concrete changes and reforms that urgently recognize their equality,” Kate McElwee, the executive director of Women’s Ordination Worldwide, told CNN. “How much longer must women wait?”

Nevertheless, for a church which thinks in centuries what may seem like small steps to those on the outside are major leaps forward for many inside.


Pope Francis' Catholic church reform process ends without giving more equity to women

Sat, October 26, 2024 








The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis' yearslong process to reform the Catholic Church closed Saturday with recommendations that fell short of giving women more equity as hoped, but reflected the pope’s aims for a church that at least listens more to its followers.

In a significant move, the pope said he would not issue a teaching document from the recommendations, which called for women to be allowed all opportunities that Church law already provides while leaving open the contentious question of permitting women to be ordained as deacons.

As a result, it remains unclear what if any authority or impact the synod’s final recommendations will have, given the purpose of the exercise was to provide the pope with specific proposals on reform.

“In this time of war, we must be witnesses to peace” and give an example of living with differences, the pope said in explaining his decision.

Francis said he would continue to listen to the bishops' counsel, adding “this is not a classic way of endlessly delaying decisions."

Deacons perform many of the same functions as priests, such as presiding over baptisms, weddings and funerals, but they cannot celebrate Mass. Advocates say allowing women to be deacons would help offset the shortage of priests. Opponents say it would signal the start of a slippery slope toward ordaining women to the all-male priesthood that Francis has repeatedly reaffirmed.

Earlier this week, the Vatican's top doctrinal officer, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, told the extraordinary assembly of 368 bishops and laypeople — including women — that Francis had said the moment “is not ripe” for allowing ordination of women as deacons. He did not respond directly to a request to define what would determine “ripeness” for a greater role for women.

The multi-year synod process had sparked great hopes for change, especially for women, who have long complained that they are treated as second-class citizens in the church. Women are barred from the church's highest ministerial positions, yet do the lion’s share of the work running Catholic hospitals and schools and passing the faith onto future generations.

Speaking to the synod on Thursday, Fernandez explained that a special working group would continue beyond the closing of the meeting, but that its focus would be on discussing the role of women in the church — not in the diaconate, or the office of deacon. He added that while working with women in previous pastoral roles, “most did not ask for or want the diaconate, which would be cumbersome for their lay work.”

The meeting asked for “full implementation of all the opportunities already provided for in Canon Law with regard to the role of women, particularly in those places where they remain under-explored.” It leaves open “the question of women's access to diaconal ministry.”

It was the most contested paragraph of the final document, with 258 votes for and 97 against. It was not clear if the “no” votes were because the language went too far or not far enough.

Phyllis Zagano, a leading scholar on women deacons, said the "no” votes could indicate it is time for a decision to be made.

The outcome is a disappointment for Catholics who have been campaigning for recognition that women share a spiritual calling that is no different than a man’s. They also noted that despite the inclusion of women in the synodal process, the working group that is guiding discussions on women’s role is being run by the Roman curia, operating outside the synod.

“I think the final document will be received with much disappointment and frustration by many women around the world who are hoping for concrete changes,'' said Kate McElwee, the executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference.

While she acknowledged a “cultural shift,” she said "the pace of that shift is perhaps too slow for many women.”

Gay rights activists also expressed disappointment, noting the failure to include LGBTQ+ issues in the final documents. “The laity of the church must now become louder and more vigorous than ever in advocating for reform,'' said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry.

The first phase of the synod process ended last year by concluding it was “urgent” to guarantee fuller participation by women in church governance positions, and calling for theological and pastoral research to continue about allowing women to be deacons.

If before the synod the idea of allowing women to be deacons was a fringe proposal pushed by Western progressives, the idea gained attention during the debate. It became something of a litmus test of how far the church was going to go, or not, to address demands of women for greater equality and representation in the church's highest ranks.

Francis, had other ideas, insisting that ordaining women would just “clericalize” them and that there were plenty of other ways to empower women in the church, even leading Catholic communities, without resorting to ordination.

The Associated Press


Catholic church reform process expected to disappoint hopes of more equity for women

Sat, October 26, 2024 


VATICAN CITY (AP) — A yearslong process to reform the Catholic Church closes Saturday with recommendations that are expected to fall far short of hopes that women would be given more equity but that reflect the pope’s aims for a church that at least listens more to its flock.

The Vatican’s top doctrinal officer, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, told the extraordinary assembly of bishops and laypeople this week that Pope Francis said the moment for allowing ordination of women as deacons in the church “is not ripe.”

The multi-year synod process had sparked great hopes for change, especially for women, who have long complained that they are treated as second-class citizens in the church. Women are barred from the priesthood and the highest ministerial positions in the Catholic Church, yet do the lion’s share of the work running Catholic hospitals and schools and passing the faith onto future generations.

Speaking to the synod on Thursday, Fernandez explained that a special working group would continue beyond the closing of the meeting, but that its focus would be on discussing the role of women in the church — not in the diaconate. He added that while working with women in previous pastoral roles, “most did not ask for or want the diaconate, which would be cumbersome for their lay work.”

He did not respond directly to a request to define what would determine “ripeness” for a greater role for women.

The outcome is shaping up to be a disappointment for Catholics who have been campaigning for recognition that women share a spiritual calling that is no different than a man’s. They also noted that despite the inclusion of women in the synodal process, the working group that is guiding discussions on women’s role is being run by the Roman curia, operating outside the synod.

“I think it is very clear that ordained men get to decide when the time is right, and they get to decide what baptismal equality amounts to. It is very frustrating, but they laid it all out,’’ said Kate McElwee, the executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference.

The first phase of the synod process ended last year by concluding it was “urgent” to guarantee fuller participation by women in church governance positions, and calling for theological and pastoral research to continue about allowing women to be deacons.

Deacons perform many of the same functions as priests, such as presiding over baptisms, weddings and funerals, but they cannot celebrate Mass.

If before the synod the idea of allowing women to be deacons was a fringe proposal pushed by Western progressives, the idea gained attention during the debate. It became something of a litmus test of how far the church was going to go, or not, to address demands of women for greater equality and representation in the highest ranks of the church.

Francis, though, had other ideas, insisting that ordaining women would just “clericalize” them and that there were plenty of other ways to empower women in the church, even leading Catholic communities, without resorting to ordination.

Advocates say allowing women to be deacons would help offset the shortage of Catholic priests and address longstanding complaints about their second-class status.

Opponents say ordaining women to the deaconate would signal the start of a slippery slope toward ordaining women to the priesthood. The Catholic Church reserves the priesthood for men.

Francis has repeatedly reaffirmed the all-male priesthood and has sharply criticized “obtuse” agitators pressing for a female diaconate.

The Associated Press