Clara continued with her political life very actively and took an active interest in the International Socialist movement apart from German politics.
by Pradip Kumar Dutta
It was in the beginning of March 2020 that myself and Anjana were in Liechtenstein on a tour of Europe. Covid 19 was spreading in Europe but it's ferocity could not be foreseen till then. On 8th of March I decided to treat my wife with a trip that she had cherished to partake since long. We came to Zurich by train from our friend's place in Liechtenstein and took the day long satisfying trip to Mount Titlis and Lucern. We were back near the Zurich Haupt Bahnhoff to catch our train when we found the traffic at a standstill making way for a huge demonstration in observance of the International Women's Day. I immediately remembered Clara Zeitkin.
Not very long ago have we started to observe International Women's Day with rallies, festivities, seminars, demonstrations, cultural activities,etc. To speak of Ms. Clara Zetkin, very few of us have known much about her. International Women's Day has been acknowledged as UN Day for Women's Rights and World Peace only in 1977. Since then most of the countries of the world have started observance of this day officially to uphold Women's rights, equality between genders, and overall development of Women.
We have been blessed with such an important Day in the World calendar thanks to the bold, consistent and strong stand taken by some very strong willed ladies who came to the forefront of international politics in post WW1 days. I am speaking of more than one hundred years ago when almost none of the countries in the world even allowed women to vote. Mind you, those countries even included USA,the most advanced country in the world now. Like it or not, it is the world leader today. The Women leaders we are talking about were spearheaded by Clara Zetkin, Roza Luxemburg, and some of their comrades, mostly from Germany, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, USA, and Russia. Let's first get some idea about who Clara Zetkin was. She was born in 1857 in Saxony of Germany to a schoolmaster cum church educator father and a well-educated mother. Having a congenial educative environment at home she could pursue her studies well and went to College in Leipzig. Still a student, she was indoctrinated with socialist ideologies.
We should consider that she was growing up, in the 60s and 70s of the 19th century, Great German Leader and proponent of Communism Karl Marx has just published his famous Communist Manifesto in 1848 in London and the whole world's progressive Forces were rallying behind his ideas. Socialist parties and related organizations started being formed and gained momentum with the novel idea of the "theory of surplus value" put forward by Marx and Engels. The creator of this surplus, the laborers, of course, was being recognized by all free thinkers as a stakeholder of this surplus. On the other hand, Capitalists demanded it to be their profit of investment and risk.
This in short gave rise to the class struggle between the Capitalists and the Proletariat. Proletariat here includes peasants and cultivators too who were landless and had nothing but their hard labor to offer to the feudal landowners, the friends of the Capitalists. As Marx and Engels rightly put it in their Manifesto, "The proletariat of the world has nothing to lose but their chains, but the whole world to conquer". All the Socialist movements everywhere were the frontal organizations of the Communists to put forward their ideas for the people to judge and accept.
The idea being novel, modern, and eye-catching and also beneficial for the most part of the society, socialist ideas started growing fast. Clara soon became a member of the German Socialist Party (SPD) and later a more radical USPD, the Independent SPD. Later she opted for the Spartacist League which was transformed into KPD, the Communist Party of Germany. But in the meantime,Count Auto Von Bismarck of Prussia who unified the German Empire,banned Socialist activities in his territory in 1878. Clara had to flee to Zurich for safety and thence to Paris in 1882 where she pursued her studies further in Law and Languages.
During this period she got herself involved in the International Socialist Movement and became an activist of peace and advocate of Women's rights. She was an ardent German Marxist. Meantime she got married to Russian Jewish Marxist Ossip Zetkin and the pair had two children. Unfortunately for Clara, her husband expired rather prematurely in 1889. Later, she relocated to Stuttgart with her kids and still later got married again to German Artist Georg Zundel,who was 18 years her junior.
They had a busy but happy life. Clara continued with her political life very actively and took an active interest in the International Socialist movement apart from German politics. After Germany's tragic defeat in WW1 in the hands of the Allies, her prediction made in 1915 (that Germany should abandon this unjust war and come out of it) came true. Then came the time for the Weimer Republic in post-war Germany and she, being by then, an active member of KPD (Communist Party of Germany) was a member of Reichstag from 1920 up to 1933.
In the German elections held in 1933, Hitler's Nazi party swept the polls and started pursuing aggressive politics. Clara Zetkin was exiled for the second time in her life and this time she chose Moscow, as it was then the Headquarters of all Communists and Socialists of the world.She was over 75 years of age and could not survive the exiled life for long. The world lost a revolutionary leader who has worked her whole life for justice to Women's cause and Socialism.
Until she breathed her last in 1933 in Archangalskoye, near Moscow,she was a firm believer in Women's Liberty hand in hand with Socialism. She preached that Women's rights and equality will automatically come,once Capitalism is done away with and Socialism in the true sense is established. She was posthumously honored profusely in the German Democratic Republic, USSR, and all other Socialist countries and some of the democratic countries as well.
To complete Clara Zetkin's life sketch I cannot but come back to International Women's Day, since she was one of the(rather the principal) masterminds behind it. In 1909 Socialist Party of America observed a National Women's Day on 28th February in New York. It was observed as civil awareness Day, Anti Sexism Day, Women's and Girl's Day, and anti-Discrimination Day. The turnout of Women was huge and it was a very encouraging and successful day.
Before the Second Socialist International in Copenhagen, a preparatory conference of International Socialist Women was organized in 1910 where Clara Zetkin and Roza Luxemburg with their other comrades raised the issue of observing a Special Women's Day annually as a day of protest against all discrimination against women all over the world including establishing equal rights for them as their male counterparts in voting, wages and all such important aspects of life. It was also to be a day of celebration: to celebrate womanhood. In the Copenhagen Socialist International their proposal was carried successfully and in 1911, 19th March was fixed as the celebration date. Millions of women, girls, and ladies came out on the streets demonstrating, protesting, and celebrating the day in different cities of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Russia, Denmark, and other countries. It went on ever since, every year on different dates set by the organizers. Finally, after the successful Socialist Revolution, when USSR was established in 1917, a fixed date was proposed and adopted.
To commemorate the first successful agitations/demonstrations of garments workers in 1857 in New York (demanding 8hours working shift and same wage as male counterparts) 8th March was declared as the International Women's Day. It is obse rved on that same day even till now. Since the 1920s it was mostly observed in the countries of the socialist world where it was a holiday. Socialist organizations in other countries also absorbed the day in their annual program. By 1967 it became a symbol of the World Feminist Movement. In, 1977 United Nations adopted the Day as UN Day for Women's Rights and World Peace. Ever since 8th March is spreading as a Day on which we renew our vow to treat our Women equally in all spheres of life and share all rights,pleasures and responsibilities of life equally with them.
Long live Clara Zetkin!
Long live her ideals! Let us read and know her more.
Let's observe International Women's Day with due solemnity. Let all men and women be equals in all spheres of life.
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