The Comintern Theses on Work Amongst Women

Introduction

This is the first of a series of archive articles in which we aim to reprint articles, theses and short pamphlets from the Communist movement which are no longer easily available or have remained untranslated into English. We aim to reprint material which is relevant to the ongoing task of developing anew Communist programme and organisation today.

The Comintern Theses on women adopted at the third congress in 1921 represent the codification of the experience of the Marxist women’s movement up to that time — particularly that of the German Social Democratic women’s movement. The international socialist women’s movement grew up alongside the socialist parties and trade unions, a movement of theoretical uncertainties and organisational variety, strongly influenced by feminist ideas.

The German socialist women’s movement with their paper Die Gleichheit (Equality), which became the international organ of the movement, took the lead in the process of clarification and unification of the movement — developing a Marxist analysis of the women’s question. It is a tribute to the sound theoretical and organisational work conducted that women social democrats took the lead in opposing their parties’ support for the war. Die Gleichheit, before Clara Zetkin was forced to resign as editor, was internationally recognised as the organ of women opposed to the war. The German socialist women took the lead in organising the International Women’s conference at Berne in 1915 (an action not only ‘outlawed’ by the Social Democratic Party committee but also reported to the government by them) which declared its opposition to the war.

By 1921, the best elements among social democratic women had rallied to the banner of the Third International, while the Second International rapidly relegated the women activists in the party to the sphere of community and social work. The Comintern Theses re-stated the Marxist analysis of women’s oppression, distinguished the socialist from the bourgeois feminist positions and outlined the aims and methods of Communist work amongst women.

We reprint these theses not because we believe they contain the last word possible on the subject but because in the present ideological flux in the women’s movement, the position of Communism before the Stalinist ‘counter-revolution’ is a vital rallying point for all those fighting to build a communist women’s tendency in the working class.

Theses

1. The third congress of the Comintern in conjunction with the second International Women’s Congress confirms the decision of the first and second congresses on the necessity for increasing the work of all the Communist parties of the East and West among proletarian women. The masses of women workers must be educated in the spirit of Communism and so drawn into the struggle for Soviet power and into the construction of the Soviet Labour Republic. In all countries the working classes, and consequently the women workers, are faced with the problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The capitalist economic system has got into a blind alley, for there is no room for the further development of industrial forces within that system. The general impoverishment of the workers, the impotence of the bourgeoisie to revive production, the development of speculative enterprises, the decay in the production system, unemployment, the fluctuation of prices out of keeping with wages — all this leads inevitably to the deepening of the class struggle in all countries. This struggle is to decide who shall conduct, administer, and organise production, and upon what system that should be done — whether it should be in the hands of a clique of bourgeois exploiters, and carried on, on the principles of capitalism and private property, or in the hands of the producing class and carried on, on a Communist basis.

The newly-rising class, the class of producers, must in accordance with the laws of economic production, take the productive apparatus in its own hands, and set up new forms of public economy. Only in such a way will it be possible to create the necessary impetus for the development of the economic forces to the maximum and for the removal of the anarchy of capitalist production.

So long as the power of government is in the hands of the bourgeois class, the proletariat has no power to organise production. No reforms, no measures, carried out by the democratic or socialistic governments of the bourgeois countries are able to save the situation. They cannot alleviate the sufferings of the working women and working men, sufferings which are due to the disorganisation of the capitalist system of production, and which are going to last as long as the power is in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Only by seizing the power of government will the proletariat be able to take hold of the means of production, and thus secure the possibility of directing the economic development in the interests of the toilers.

In order to hasten the hour of the decisive conflict between the proletariat and the degenerating bourgeois world, the working class must adhere to the firm and unhesitating tactics outlined by the Third International. The most fundamental and immediate goal determining the methods of work and the line of struggle for the proletariat of both sexes, must be the dictatorship of labour.

As the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat is the vital question before the proletariat of all the capitalist countries, and the construction of Communism is the important task of those countries where the dictatorship is already in the hands of the workers, the Third Congress of the Communist International maintains that the conquest of power by the proletariat, as well as the achievement of Communism in those countries where the capitalist state has already been overthrown, can be realised only with the active participation of the wide masses of the proletarian and semi-proletarian women.

On the other hand the congress once more calls the attention of all women to the fact that without the support of the Communist parties in all the tasks and undertakings leading to the liberation and enfranchisement of the women, this task is practically impossible of achievement.

2. The interest of the working class, especially at the present moment, imperatively demands the recruiting of women into the organised ranks of the proletariat, fighting for Communism.

The economic ruin throughout the world is becoming more acute and more unbearable to the entire city and country poor. Before the working class of the bourgeois-capitalist countries the question of the social revolution rises more and more clearly, and before the working class of Soviet Russia the question of reconstructing the public economy of the land on a new Communist basis becomes more and more vital. Both these tasks will be more easily realised, the more active and the more conscious and willing the participation of the women.

3. Wherever the question of the taking of power arises, the Communist parties must consider the great danger to the revolution represented by the inert, uninformed masses of women workers, housewives, employees, peasant women, not liberated from the influence of the bourgeois church and bourgeois superstitions, and not connected in some way or other with the great liberating movement of Communism. Unless the masses of women of the East and West are drawn into this movement, they inevitably become the stronghold of the bourgeoisie and the object of counter-revolutionary propaganda. The experience of the revolution in Hungary, where the ignorance of the masses of women played such a pitiful part, should serve, in this case, as a warning for the proletariat of all other countries entering upon the road of social revolution.

On the other hand, the experience of the Soviet Republic showed in practice how important the participation of the women workers and peasants has been in the civil war in the defence of the Republic, as well as in all other activities of the Soviet construction. Facts have proven the importance of the part which the women workers and peasants have already played in the Soviet Republic in the organisation of defence, strengthening the rear; the struggle against desertion, and against all sorts of counter-revolution, sabotage, etc. The experience of the Workers’ Republic must serve as a lesson to all other countries.

Hence, the direct task of the Communist parties: to spread the influence of the Communist Party to the widest circles of the women population of their countries within the party; organising a special party body and applying special methods; appealing to the women outside of it, to free them from the influence of the bourgeoisie and the compromising parties, and educating them to be real fighters for Communism, and therefore for the complete enfranchisement of the women.

4. Putting before the Communist parties of the East and West the direct task of extending the activity of the party among the women proletariat, the third congress of the Comintern declares also to the women of the entire world that their emancipation from age-long slavery and inequality depends upon the victory of Communism.

What Communism offers to the women, the bourgeois women’s movement will never afford her. So long as the power of capitalism and private property continue to exist, the emancipation of woman from subservience to her husband cannot proceed further than her right to dispose of her property and earnings as she sees fit, and also to decide on equal terms with her husband the destiny of their children.

The most definite aim of the feminists — to grant the vote to the women under the regime of bourgeois parliamentarism — does not solve the question of the actual equalisation of women, especially of those of the dispossessed classes. This has been clearly demonstrated by the experience of the working women in those capitalist countries where the bourgeoisie has formally recognised the equality of the sexes. The right to vote does not remove the prime cause of women’s enslavement in the family and in society. The substitution of the church marriage by civil marriage does not in the least alleviate the situation. The dependence of the proletarian woman upon the capitalist and upon her husband as the economic mainstay of the family remains just the same. The absence of adequate laws to safeguard motherhood and infancy and the lack of proper social education render entirely impossible the equalisation of women’s position in matrimonial relations. As a matter of fact, nothing that can be done under capitalism will furnish the key to the solution of the problem of the relationship of the sexes.

Only under Communism, not merely the formal, but the actual equalisation of women will be achieved. Then woman will be the rightful owner on a par with all the members of the working class, of the means of production and distribution. She will participate in the management of industry and she will assume an equal responsibility for the well-being of society.

In other words, only by overthrowing the system of exploitation of man by man, and by supplanting the capitalist mode of production by the Communist organisation of industry, will the full emancipation of woman be achieved. Only Communism affords the conditions which are necessary in order that the natural functions of woman-motherhood should not come into conflict with her social obligations and hinder her creative work for the benefit of society. On the contrary, Communism will facilitate the most harmonious and diversified development of a healthy and beautiful personality that is indissolubly bound together with the whole life and activities of the entire society. Communism should be the aim of all women who are fighting for complete emancipation and real freedom.

But Communism is also the final aim of the proletariat. Consequently the struggle of the working women for this aim must be carried on in the interests of both, under a united leadership and control, as ‘one and indivisible’ to the entire world movement of the revolutionary proletariat.

5. The third congress of the Comintern confirms the basic proposition of revolutionary Marxism, i.e., that there is no ‘specific woman question’ and no ‘specific women’s movement’, and, that every sort of alliance of working women with bourgeois feminism, as well as any support by the women workers of the treacherous tactics of the social-compromisers and opportunists, leads to the undermining of the forces of the proletariat, delaying thereby the triumph of the social revolution and the advent of Communism and thus also postponing the great hour of women’s ultimate liberation.

Communism will be achieved not by ‘united efforts of all women of different classes’, but by the united struggle of all the exploited.

In their own interests the masses of proletarian women should support the revolutionary tactics of the Communist Party and take a most active part in all mass-actions and all forms of civil war on a national and international scope.

6. Woman’s struggle against her double oppression (capitalism and her home and family subservience), at its highest stage of development, assumes an international character, becoming identified with the struggle of the proletariat of both sexes under the banner of the Third International for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviet system.
7. While warning the women workers against entering into any form of alliance and co-operation with the bourgeois feminists, the third congress of the Comintern, at the same time, points out to the working women of all countries that to cherish any illusions of the possibility of the proletarian women supporting the Second International or any of the opportunistically inclined elements adhering to it without causing serious damage to the cause of women’s emancipation — will prove infinitely detrimental for the liberating struggle of the proletariat. The women must constantly remember that woman’s present-day slavery has grown out of the bourgeois order. In order to put an end to women’s slavery it is necessary to inaugurate the new Communist organisation of society.

Any support rendered to the Second and the Second-and-a-Half Internationals hampers the social revolution, delaying the advent of the new order. The more resolutely and uncompromisingly the women masses will turn away from the Second and the Second-and-a-half Internationals, the more certain will be the triumph of the Social Revolution. It is the sacred duty of all women Communists to condemn those who flinch from the revolutionary tactics of the Comintern and to demand their expulsion from the ranks of the Comintern.

The women ought to remember that the Second International never created and never attempted to create any organ whose task would be to carry on an active struggle for the complete emancipation of woman. The organisation of an international alliance of women socialists was started outside the Second International by the initiative of the men workers themselves. The women socialists who devoted themselves to work among women had neither representation nor a decisive vote in the Second International.

At its first congress, in 1919, the Third International defined its attitude towards enlisting the support of women in the struggle for the dictatorship. On its initiative, the first conference of women Communists was convened in 1920 and an International Secretariat for work among women was constituted with a permanent representation in the Executive Committee of the Comintern. It is the duty of all class-conscious women workers to break unconditionally with the Second and Second-and-a-half Internationals and support whole-heartedly the revolutionary tactics of the Comintern.

8. The support of the Comintern by the women workers of all occupations should, first of all, express itself in their willingness to enter into the ranks of the Communist Party of their respective countries. In those countries and parties where the struggle between the Second and Third Internationals has not yet come to a head, it is the duty of women workers to support by all means, the party and groups that stand for the Comintern and carry on a relentless warfare against all vacillations and avowedly treacherous elements, irrespective of any authorities holding a different view. The class-conscious women who are striving for emancipation should not remain in any parties which have not joined the Comintern. Those who are opposed to the Third International are the enemies of the emancipation of women.

The place of conscious working women in Eastern and Western countries is under the flag of the Communist International and in the ranks of the Communist parties of their own countries. All wavering on the part of the working women and the fear to sever connection with the parties of compromise, and the hitherto acknowledged authorities, have a pernicious influence on the satisfactory progress of the great proletarian struggle, which is assuming the nature of an open and relentless civil war on a world scale.

Methods and form of work among women

Owing to all the above-mentioned reasons, the third congress of the Comintern holds that the work among the proletariat women should be carried out by the Communist parties of all countries, on the following basis:

1. Women must be enlisted as full-fledged members of the party, on the basis of equality and independence, in all militant class organisations, trade unions, co-operatives, factory committees, etc.
2. To recognise the importance of recruiting women into all branches of the active struggle of the proletariat (including military service for the defence of the proletariat) and into the construction of new forms of society and life and the organisation of industry and life on a Communist basis.
3. To recognise the functions of motherhood as a social function, promoting and supporting appropriate measures to aid and protect women as the bearer of the human race.

Being earnestly opposed to the separate organisation of women into all sorts of parties, unions, or any other special women’s organisations, the third congress nevertheless believes that in view of (a) the present conditions of subjection prevailing not only in the bourgeois capitalist countries, but also in countries under the Soviet system, undergoing transition from capitalism to Communism; (b) the great inertness and political ignorance of the masses of women, due to the fact that they have been for centuries barred from social life and to age-long slavery in the family; and (c) the special functions imposed upon women by nature — childbirth, and the peculiarities attached to this, calling for the protection of her strength and health in the interests of the entire community — the third congress therefore considers it necessary to find special methods of work among the women of the Communist parties and establishes a standard of special apparatus within the Communist parties for the realisation of this work.

The apparatus for this work among the women in the party should be the sections or committees for work among women, organised by all party committees commencing with the Executive Committee and ending with the city districts or village party committees. This decision is obligatory for all parties attached to the Comintern.

The third congress points out that, amongst the tasks set before the Communist parties carried out through the sections are: (1) To educate the wide masses of women in the spirit of Communism, drawing them into the ranks of the party; (2) to fight against the prejudices of male proletarians towards the women, strengthening in the working men and women the consciousness of mutual interests of the proletarians of both sexes; (3) to increase the will power of the women by drawing them into all kinds and forms of political struggle, to awaken their activity and participation in the struggle against capitalist exploitation in the bourgeois countries by mass demonstrations against the high cost of living, against the housing conditions, unemployment, and in other revolutionary forms of the class war; the participation of the women workers in the construction of the Communist state and in the Soviet Republics; (4) to put on the order of business among the tasks of the parties and to pass rules tending to the direct enfranchisement of the woman, recognising her equality and the protection of her interests as the perpetuator of the race; (5) to wage a well planned fight against traditions, bourgeois customs and religion, clearing the way for better and more harmonious relations between the sexes, protecting the physical and moral strength of labouring humanity.

The entire work of the sections or committees should be carried on under the direct control and responsibility of the party committees. A member of the local party committee should be at the head of such section or committee. Communists should be members of these committees or collegiums wherever it is possible.

All measures and problems of the committees or sections of work amongst women must not be handled by them independently, but in the Soviet Republics, through the respective economic and political organs (branches of the Soviets, Commissariats, Trade Unions, etc.) and, in the capitalist countries, with the support of the respective organs of the proletarian parties, unions, factory committees etc.

In all places where the Communist parties exist illegally or semi-legally, the party should organise an illegal apparatus for work amongst women. In all illegal bodies there must be at least one party member to organise the women for illegal work.

The present period requires that trade and industrial unions should form the principal basis for work amongst women, both in countries which still carry on the struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist yoke, as well as in the Soviet Labour Republics.

The spirit with which the work amongst women should be imbued is that of the unity of the party movement, of an intact organisation, of independent initiative and independent of commissions and sections aiming at a speedy and complete emancipation of women, to be brought about by the party. What should be striven after is not parallelism in activity, but assistance in the activity of the party by means of self-development and initiative of the working women.

Work of the party amongst women in Soviet countries

It is the task of the sections of the Soviet Labour Republics to educate the masses of the working women in a spirit of Communism, by attracting them to the Communist Party, to inspire and develop activity and self-reliance by drawing them into the work of constructive Communism and bringing them up as staunch defenders of the Communist International.

It is the task of the sections to attract the women to every form of Soviet construction, including questions of defence, as well as all the economic plans of the Republic.

In the Soviet Republic the sections should see that all the regulations of the Eight Congress of Soviets regarding the attraction of working and peasant women to the work of building up and organising public production, as well as their participation in the work of all those organs which direct, manage, control and organise production, should be carried out. The sections should participate through their representatives and through the party organs in the elaboration of new laws and exercise an influence on the alteration of such as require much alteration in the interest of the enfranchisement of women. The sections should take the greatest interest and show most initiative in the development of those laws which deal with the protection of the labour of women and children.

It is the duty of the sections to attract the greatest possible number of working and peasant women to all election campaigns of Soviets, as also to see to it that working and peasant women are elected as members of Soviets and of Executive Committees.

The sections should make it their business to assist in every way possible in the making of a success of political and economic campaigns carried on by the party.

It is the task of the sections to assist the growth of skilled women labour by means of professional education, as well as to facilitate the admission of the working and peasant women to the corresponding educational establishments.

The sections should facilitate the entrance of working women into the Commission for the Protection of Labour in various enterprises, and should also accelerate the activity of the auxiliary committees for the protection of mother and child.

The sections should make it their business to assist the development of all social institutions such as communal kitchens, laundries, repairing shops, institutions of social education, communal houses, etc., which, basing as they do the conditions of life upon a new Communist principle, ameliorate the difficulties which women experience during the transition period; assist their rapid enfranchisement and transform the slave of the family and the home into a free co-worker in the great social renaissance, a fellow creator of new forms of life.

Through organisers working amongst women elected by the Communist fraction of trade unions, the sections should assist in the education of the women workers, members of the trade unions, in the spirit of Communism.

The sections should look after the due attendance of the working women at all general factory delegates’ conferences.

The sections should carry out a systematic distribution of auxiliary workers, for all Soviet, economic and trade union work.

The sections must first of all take deep and firm root amongst the proletarian women, wage-earners, and organise propaganda amongst employees, housewives and peasant women.

To build up a firm connection between the party and the mass of the people, and to spread its influence over the non-party members of society, and also to develop the method of education of the women folk in the spirit of Communism, by teaching self-activity and participation in practical work, the Women’s Sections are to organise delegate meetings of women workers.

The delegate meetings are the best means to educate the women workers and peasants, and to spread the party influence amongst the backward masses of women workers and peasants.

These delegate meetings are formed from factory and shop representatives of a certain region, city or volost. In Soviet Russia, the women delegates are drawn into all kinds of political and economic campaigns. They are sent into different committees in industry, are invited to control Soviet institutions, and used for regular work in the Soviet departments, in the capacity of clerks, for two months (Law of 1921).

The women delegates should be elected at general meetings of the shop workers, of the housewives and employees, according to a certain rate of representation fixed by the party. The Women’s Sections are obliged to carry on propaganda and agitation among the delegates, for which purpose special meetings of women delegates are to be arranged not less than twice a month. The delegates are requested to make reports of their activities either in the shops where they work, or at meetings arranged in the city districts. The delegates should be elected for a period of three months.

Another form of agitation among the women is the organisation of large non-party conferences of women workers and peasants. Representatives to conferences are to be elected at meetings held for women workers — at their place of work, and for peasant women — in the villages.

The section for work amongst women is charged to call the conferences, as well as to supervise their work.

In order to make the best use of the experience that the women workers have secured by participating in the work and activities of the party, the branches and committees carry on an elaborate campaign of propaganda by word of mouth and press. The sections arrange meetings and discussion for the women workers at the shops and for the housewives at the city clubs. They exercise control over the delegate meetings and carry on house to house agitation.

To train active workers among the women and to widen their understanding of Communism, the party must organise, with the help of the sections, special courses for work among the women, at each party school or school for Soviet work.

In capitalist countries

The current tasks of the committees or sections for work among women are initiated by the circumstances of the period. On the one hand, the ruin of world economy, the rampant growth of unemployment, especially affecting the women workers and tending to increase prostitution, the high cost of living, the acute housing question, and the threats of new imperialistic wars; on the other hand, the unceasing strikes in all countries, repeated outbursts of armed uprisings of the proletariat, and the ever more violent civil war throughout the world, are the prologue to the inevitable world social revolution.

The women’s committees must put forward the most important tasks of the proletariat, fight for the unabridged slogans of the Communist Party, of the Communists against the bourgeoisie and social-compromisers. The committees must see to it that the women are not only registered as equal members of the party, trade unions and other militant workers’ organisations, which are waging the fight against all injustice or inequality of the women workers, but also that the women should be allowed to occupy responsible positions in the party, union or co-operative on an equal basis with the men.

The committees or sections must facilitate the work of the wide masses of the women proletarians and peasant women in utilising their franchise in the interests of the Communist parties during election to the parliament and to all the public institutions, explaining at the same time the limitations of those rights, in the sense of weakening the capitalist exploitation, promoting enfranchisement of women, and replacing parliamentarism by the Soviet system.

The committees must also aid the women workers, employees and peasant women to take a most active part in the elections of revolutionary, economic and political soviets of workers’ deputies, obtaining representation in them, awakening the political activity of the housewives, and carrying on a propaganda of the Soviet idea among the peasant women. The special concern of the committees must be the realisation of the principle of equal pay for equal work. It is the task of the committee to start a campaign, drawing men and women workers into it, for free, universal, education, aiding the women to become highly qualified in their work.

The committees should see to it that women Communists take part in the legislative, municipal and other legislative organisations, in fact, wherever women have the right to vote.

While participating in the legislative, municipal and other organisations of bourgeois states, Communist women should strictly adhere to the tactics of the party, not concerning themselves too much with the realisation of reforms within the limits of the bourgeois world order, but taking advantage of every live question and demand of the working women, as watchwords by which to lead the women into the active mass struggle for these demands, through the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The committees or sections must explain the disadvantages and waste of the system of individual housekeeping, the bad bringing up and education of the children by the bourgeoisie, rallying the women workers to the struggle for practical improvement of the conditions of the working class, waged or supported by the party.

The committees must aid in recruiting the women to the Communist Party from the trade unions, for which purpose the Communist fraction of the trade unions appoints an organiser for work among the women, under the direction of the party and the local branch. The entire work of the committee must be carried on with one purpose in view: the development of the revolutionary activity of the masses and the hastening of the social revolution.

In economically backward countries (the East)

Notice: The work among the Eastern women being of great importance, and at the same time representing a new problem for the Communist parties, the conference deems it necessary to add to this thesis special instruction on the methods of communist propaganda among the women of the Eastern countries, appropriate to their local habits and conditions.

In conjunction with the Communist Party and the Women’s Section should do everything possible to achieve in industrially weak countries, the recognition of the legal equality, the equality both of rights and of obligations, of women in the parties, unions and other organisations of the working class.

The sections or committees should carry on, in conjunction with the party, a struggle against prejudice, religious customs and habits which maintain an oppressive hold upon the women; to achieve this, it is also necessary to carry on propaganda amongst the men.

The Communist Party, together with the sections or commissions, should carry out the principle of the equality of women in matters of education of children, family relations and general social life.

The sections should look for support in their work, first of all, amongst the large classes of women who are exploited by capitalism in the capacity of workers in home industries, as labourers on rice, cotton and other plantations, and assist in the general establishment of communal workshops and home co-operatives; this applies especially to all Eastern peoples living within the borders of Soviet Russia; the sections should also assist in the general organisation of all women engaged in plantation work with the working men united in trade unions.

The raising of the general educational level of the population is one of the best means of fighting the general stagnation of the country as well as religious prejudice. The committees or sections should, therefore, assist in the opening of schools for grown-ups and children, such schools also to be accessible to the women. In bourgeois countries, the committees should carry on a direct agitation to counteract the influence of the bourgeois schools.

Wherever possible, the sections or committees should carry the agitation into the homes of the women and utilise the field work of the women for purposes of agitation. They should also organise clubs for working women, doing everything to attract to these clubs the most backward section of the women. These clubs should represent cultural and educational centres and model institutions, illustrating what can be achieved by women for their emancipation through such means of self-activity as the organisation of crèches, kindergartens, schools for adults and so forth. Special clubs should be organised for nomadic peoples.

In Soviet lands the sections, together with the party, should assist in the transformation of the existing pre-capitalist forms of production and economics into a communal form of production. They should be practically propagated, in a manner to convince the working women, that the former home-life and home-production oppressed and exploited them, whilst communal labour will emancipate them.

With regard to the peoples of the East who live within the borders of Soviet Russia, the sections should take care that Soviet legislation should equalise men and women, and that the interests of the women should be properly protected. For this purpose the sections should assist in appointing women to the position of judges, and as members of juries in national courts of law.

The sections should also get the women to participate in Soviets, taking care that working and peasant women should be elected into the Soviets and Executive Committees. All work amongst the women proletariat of the East should be done on a class basis. It should be the task of the sections to expose the powerlessness of the Moslem feminists in the solution of the question of the enfranchisement of women. For enlightening purposes in all the Soviet countries of the East, intelligent feminine forces should be utilised, as, for instance, women teachers and sympathisers, avoiding all tactics and vulgar treatment of religious faiths and national traditions. The sections or committees working amongst the women of the East should definitely fight against nationalism and the hold of religion on the women’s minds.

All the organisations of the workers should, in the East as well as in the West, be built not upon the basis of defending national interest, but upon the unity of the International proletariat of both sexes striving for the same class aims.

Propaganda and agitation

In order to fulfil the principal task of the sections, dealing with the Communist education of the large masses of the proletariat, and in order to reinforce this body of fighters, it is necessary that all Communist parties of the West and of the East should realise that the principle of work among women is: ‘agitation and propaganda by deed’.

Agitation by deed first of all signifies an ability to arouse a sense of independence in the working women, to eradicate the distrust in themselves and, by attracting them to the practical work of construction, to teach them by practical experience that every action which is directed against capitalist exploitation, is one more step toward the improvement of the position of women. The method which the Communist Party and its sections for work amongst women should use, can be expressed in the following words: ‘From experience and action, to a knowledge of the ideas of Communism and of its theoretical principles.’

In order that the section should represent organs not of verbal propaganda alone, but also of activity, it is necessary that they should work in contact with the Communist fractions of the various enterprises and workshops, for which purpose the latter should supply an organiser for the work among the women of the respective enterprise or workshop.

The sections should come into contact with the trade unions through their representatives or organisers, who are appointed for that purpose by the trade union fraction, and who should carry on work under the direction of sections. Propaganda, by deed, of Communist ideas in Soviet Russia, signifies that all the women workers, peasant women, housewives and employees in all spheres of Soviet life, from the army and militia down to every enfranchised Oblast (district) should be drawn into the work of the organisation of communal housekeeping, of establishing the necessary number of institutions for public education, institutions for the protection of motherhood, and so forth. A special task is to draw the labour women into the bodies that control, etc., the production.

Active propaganda, by deeds, in the capitalist countries, means first of all the enlistment of the women workers to take part in strikes, demonstrations and other forms of the class struggle, fortifying and enlightening the revolutionary will and consciousness; the recruiting of women workers to all sorts of party activity, their utilisation for purposes of illegal work, particularly in despatch service, the organisation of party ‘Saturdays’ or ‘Sundays’ at which all women sympathisers of Communism, the wives of labouring and professional men, in this way learn to be useful to the party. The principle of propaganda by acts and deeds is also aided by drawing the women into all political, economic or educational campaigns, from time to time carried on by the Communist parties.

While organising the feminine forces for the party the sections must, first of all, leave deep and firm roots amongst the women workers, developing propaganda activity also among the housewives, employees and peasant women.

In order to carry out the work of propaganda by word of mouth, according to a plan, the sections must arrange meetings in the factories and workshops, also open meetings for women workers and employees according to profession or location, as well as general public meetings of housewives. They must see to it that canvassers and organisers are elected by the Communist groups of the trade unions, co-operative and industrial councils in capitalist states, and that women members are elected in all the organising controlling and administrative bodies of the Soviet institutions. In a word, the labour women must be elected to all organisations, which in capitalist countries must be used to revolutionise the exploited and oppressed masses, and assist them in their struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat; and in Soviet countries to such organisations as serve to defend and realise Communism.

The sections must delegate experienced women Communists as workers or employees to enterprises where great numbers of women are employed. These comrades must settle down in large Proletarian districts and centres, as practised with success in Soviet Russia. In the same way as the working women’s organisations of the Communist Party in Soviet Russia organise meetings and conferences of delegates not belonging to any party, the Communist women’s committees in the capitalist countries must convene public meetings of women workers, female employees of every kind, peasant women and housewives, to discuss various questions and needs of the day, and elect committees to serve as connecting links between their respective constituencies and the Communist women’s organisations, and to attend to the questions raised. They should also send speakers representing their views to gatherings of opposing organisations. Public propaganda by means of meetings, etc., must be supplemented by constant and regular home propaganda.

Each Communist woman engaged in this work should have not more than ten women to visit at their homes, on whom she ought to call regularly at least once a week, and also on every occasion of importance to the Communist Party, or the proletarian masses.

In order to promote agitation, organisation and education among the masses by written word, the women’s section of the Communist parties are charged to work for the establishment of: (1) a central women’s Communist journal in every country; (2) to secure the appearance of a women’s department in the Communist press, as also the printing of articles in the political and industrial papers. They must provide editors for such publications, and find adequate assistance for them in the ranks of professional and militant women. The sections must publish and distribute simple, stimulating and adequate literature in pamphlets and leaflets. They must strive to make the best possible use of their members.

Women Communists should be sent to attend courses in party schools in order to intensify their class consciousness and to prepare them for work among the masses of women. Special courses, lectures and discussions for women can be organised only in case of special conditions and urgent necessity.

In order to enhance the spirit of comradeship among male and female workers it is desirable not to organise separate courses of schools, but to establish, in the general party schools, sections for courses for work among women. The sections exercise a right to elect a certain number of their women members for attendance at the general party courses.

Construction of the sections or committees of work sections amongst the women must be organised by each party local executive, district executive and the Central Executive Committee of the party.

Each country decides for itself the numbers of members in these sections or committees. The number of members of the sections, who are paid by the party, is also fixed by each party according to the possibilities.

The director or chairman of the local committees or sections must be a member of the local party committee. Where this is not the case, the director of the section is present at all meetings of the party committee, with the right of decisive vote on all questions of the women’s committees, and with a consultative vote on all other questions.

Besides the duties of the district section or committee above mentioned, the following tasks are also part of their work: to maintain connections between the sections of one district with the central sections; to collect facts on the activity of the district sections or committees; to facilitate the exchange of material between the local branches; to supply the district with literature; distribute agitators among the districts; to mobilise the efficient party workers for work among women; to call district conferences of the women Communists, representatives of branches, with a representation of one or two from each branch, at least twice a year; to call non-party conferences of women workers, peasant women and housewives of a particular district. The members of the section or the committee are approved by the provincial committee or the county committee on recommendation by the director of the section. The director, as well as the other members of the county committees and province committees, are elected at the conferences of the county.

Members of the district or local sections or committees are elected at a general city, county or district conference or are appointed by the respective sections in agreement with the party committee. If the director of the section is not a member of the district party committee, he has the right to be present at all meetings of the party committee with a decisive vote on all questions of the branch, and with a consultative vote on all other questions.

Besides all the functions above mentioned, which are the duties of the district sections, the central section must fulfil the following additional functions: instruct the sections and their workers; investigate the work of the section; take charge in connection with the respective organs of the party, of the transfer of workers from one section to another; observe the conditions and development of work, consider the changes in the legal or economic situation of the women, through its representatives or appointees; participate in special committees, solving the questions of bettering the conditions of existence of working class, protection of labour, protection of childhood, etc.; publish a central ‘page’ and edit periodical journals for women; call conferences of the representatives of all the district sections not less than once a year; organisational excursions of instructors on work among the women of the country; take charge of the recruiting of women and of the participation of all sections in all sorts of political and economic campaigns and demonstrations of the party; send delegates to the International Secretariat of Women Communists; take charge of the annual International Women’s Day.

If the director of the Women’s Section of the Executive Committee of the party is not a member of the Executive Committee, he has the right to be present at all the meetings of the Executive Committee, with a decisive vote on all questions concerning the sections, and with a consultative vote on all others. The director of the section or the chairman of the committee is appointed by the Central Executive Committee, or is elected at the general party congress. The decisions and resolutions of all sections or committees are subject to the final sanction of the respective party committee.

Work on an international basis

The direction of the work of the Communist parties of all countries, uniting the women workers for the tasks set by the Comintern, and drawing the women of all countries and nations into the revolutionary struggle for the Soviet system and the dictatorship of the working class, on a world basis, is the task of the Women’s Secretariat of the Comintern.