Clara Zetkin5 July 1857 -20 June 1933 The Name Clara Zetkin is closely linked with the origins of the proletarian women movement. In this field, she got a lot done which is still unforgettable and from which we can still today learn a lot. But Clara Zetkin played not only an outstanding role in the problem of women but also contributed a lot to the struggle of the working class for socialism in the struggle against opportunism, as founding member of the KPD, defending the young socialist Soviet Union, against the imperialist war and the many years of being president of the International Red Help. Clara Zetkin, by born Eissner, was born on July 5, 1857 in Saxony, Germany. She grew up in a small village of homeworkers in the Erzgebirge, where her father was the teacher. She started quite early to be politically active and joint the Socialist Workers Party in 1878, the precursor organisation of the SPD. Although this led to the rift with her family, Clara not let herself be swayed and from there on became a firm part of the international communist movement. Until the end of her life she continued this way of an upright and militant communist. In 1889, the II Internationale met in Paris. Clara Zetkin presented a paper on the women question and thus brought the topic for the first time to this extend on the agenda of the communist movement. After having lived and worked abroad a few years, Clara Zetkin returned to Germany after the abolition of the laws persecuting the socialists and in 1892 she started to publish and lead the proletarian women magazine of the party "die Gleichheit" (equality). She worked for 25 years in the editorial board and had a great impact on the content of the magazine, which became a mouthpiece for the proletarian women movement. In 1907, Clara Zetkin is elected at the first International Women Conference of socialist women in Stuttgart/Germany president of the International Women Secretary. In 1910, the second International Conference of socialist women takes place in Copenhague. There, Zetkin proposes the establishing of aninternational womens day, which is celebrated still today every year on Marth 8 all over the world. When the II. Internationale, among them also the SPD, betrayed the working class at the outbreak of World War I and took the side of the bourgeoisie by approving of the war credits, she determinedly rejected this opportunist attitude. The organizational break came to the agenda and Zetkin takes actively part in the foundation of the Union of Spartacus and later of the KPD. She is a Member of Parliament for the KPD from 1920 - 1933 and during her first journey to the socialist Soviet Union she became a friend of Lenin. From this time on she lived alternately in Germany and the Soviet Union. From 1921-1925 she was in charge of the leadership of the newspaper "The Communist Women Internationale" and from 1925-1933 she was the president of the International Red Help On August 30, 1932, she travels to Germany having many difficulties in the way and to the big annoyance of the reactionary forces she opened the newly-selected Reichstag in her function as oldest member of the Parliament. In her speech, she announced the coming breakdown of the capitalist society and called for the United Front against the impending fascism. On June 20, 1933 Clara Zektin dies after painful illness in Archangelskoje, near Moscow. Her urn is buried at the Kremlin wall in Moscow.
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