Today more than ever, in the face of recent weakness of the communist women's work, international contacts and exchanges are important, in order to learn from each other, to exchange experiences and to strengthen the struggles of the labouring women in different countries.

01 December 2008 / Red Dawn / Issue 13

In many areas of the class struggle the need for international solidarity and coordination has been understood already and initiatives corresponding to that have been developed. However, in the sphere of women's work we are still in our infancy meanwhile the bourgeois and petite-bourgeois women obtained at least a certain level of international communication and networking. Today more than ever, in the face of recent weakness of the communist women's work, international contacts and exchanges are important, in order to learn from each other, to exchange experiences and to strengthen the struggles of the labouring women in different countries.

Birth of the women's movement

The oppression of women, which shows itself in all social spheres of life, began with the transition from collective property to private property, the abolition of the matriarchy and the division of the society into classes.
We can be sure that there has been resistance of women against their position as oppressed gender from the beginning on, however except for legends and single examples of women, unfortunately very little is known about these times.
The organized women's movement began with the bourgeois French revolution at the end of the 18th century. For the first time, the demand for full social equality was voiced. The ground for that had been created by the capitalist mode of production, which was the driving force behind the striving for equality, in order to be able to exploit men as well as women without any obstacle. The bourgeois women's movement never questioned the reason of the oppression of women, the existence of the private property, but it did play a progressive role in history and obtained several achievements as women's suffrage, equal rights, legal protection of working mothers etc.
The first and only women's movement, which really aims at the liberation of women from exploitation and oppression, is the proletarian women's movement, because it considers the women's issue as social issue and links the struggles of the labouring women with those of the whole working class. It fights not only for a formal, legal equality within the existing order, but on the contrary for the economic and social equality of women and the abolition of the roots of the oppression of women, the private property.
The proletarian women's movement began to develop in the end of the 19th century and especially under the leadership of communist women like Clara Zetkin it won force and importance. Also the role of the I. International, founded by Marx and Engels, was of a big importance for the comprehension of the need to integrate women just as men into the class struggle and to organize them. In 1910, the II. International has introduced the International Labouring Women's Day, following an initiative of Clara Zetkin, in memory of the resistance of the female workers in New York on Mach 8, 1857, which is still celebrated militantly in many countries even today.

Feminism and burgeois women's movement

Today, different trends exist within the international women's movement and feminism is by a long way the strongest one among them. Generally speaking, feminism is the view to consider not the classes, but the genders as the main contradiction. According to this, feminism does not make a difference between bourgeois and proletarian women but only between men and women. This opinion includes the class conciliation and diverts the attention from the origin of the problems, the private property.
Until today, feminism did not draw up a project leading to the liberation of women and it is also not able to do so. Feminism does not claim to liberate whole humanity anyway, but as it is trying to bring together women belonging to different classes, in a class society it necessarily is confronted with contradictions between the different class interests and in fact cannot really bring about a fundamental change.
Of course there are many different trends of feminism between which we have to differentiate. After the first wave of the bourgeois women's movement had obtained achievements like the right to vote and the eligibility to stand for election and legal equality, the main part of it turned into liberal-feminist trends, which are also supported by the bourgeois states. This was followed after the World War II, especially in the 1960s and 70s, by the second wave of the bourgeois women's movement, whose class composition was in contrast to the first one mainly petite-bourgeois. Within this movement, which developed particularly in Europe, many different trends arose, among them the so-called radical feminism, which parts from the equality in principle (universalism) of the genders and explains the existing differences between the genders mainly by the social balances of power and the socialization of the people. Another big trend of feminism in these years was the socialist feminism, which does accept the relation of private property with the women's issue but puts the contradiction between the genders over the class contradiction and thus misjudges the nature of the attitude of Marxism to the women's issue. Socialist feminism holds the negative attitude of the revisionist parties in the women's issue against Marxism.
After the fast ascent of radical feminism in the 70s, it degenerated in the 80s to the "postmodern feminism" and splitted into various trends. One trend among these is the deconstructivist feminism, which, as also many other trends, bases on the existentialist feminism of Beauvoir and even goes a step ahead by saying, that the biological gender as well as the social gender are social constructs and therefore gender has to be rejected as unit of classification. The difference between human beings stands in the centre of this theory that means that adopted common grounds /gender identities are "dissolved/deconstructed". Instead of that, it parts from the idea that there are as many identities as human beings existing.
These bourgeois views of the women's issue are very popular especially in the imperialist countries; we can see them frequently at Social forums, in forms of different NGOs, in the framework of the so-called anti-globalization movement and in women's projects directly financed by the governments. Like all post-modern theories, also the post-modern and liberal feminist theories have lost any progressive character today and serve only the division of the working class in religion, nature and, as it is the case here, gender.
Since the women's issue cannot be solved within the capitalist system, the bourgeois women's movement necessarily comes up more and more against its limiting factors in the imperialist countries and its demands are oriented more on career chances and leading positions and do not have a lot in common with the problems of the labouring women. For the same reason, problems corresponding to the women's issues like oppression, violence, rape etc. of course are continuing to exist everywhere and for all women - even though to a different extent.
The imperialist bourgeoisie tries hard to win the women and tries to organize them according to their interests. One important means for that is numerous trends of the bourgeois women's movement.

Feminism in the democratic women's movement

Feminism is also widespread in the democratic women's movement.
In those countries, where the democratic, anti-imperialist revolution is on the agenda, and the petite-bourgeoisie can historically still play a revolutionary role, the labouring women's movement, consisting of the women from the working class and its allies, is composed differently and movements with feminist character, whose social base is petite-bourgeois women, do have a progressive character.
One current example how feminism manifests itself within the democratic women's movement is the Kurdish women's movement, which is a part of the national Kurdish movement.
From the second half of the 90s on, some feminist influences existed in the approach of the PKK on the women's issue, however, essentially after the extradition of the leader of the PKK Ocalan to Turkey as a result of an international complot, together with the change of the line realized together with the Imrali defense following that and the PKK sliding from a petite-bourgeois revolutionary line to a petite-bourgeois reformist line, feminism became an evident tendency.
The content of the Imrali defense essentially is a renunciation of national independence, a rejection of Marxism; however these changes are theoretically justified and fed with feminism. In his book titled "From the Sumerian Priest State to the Democratic Republic", Ocalan accounts in details for why "women are a class of its own".
The fundamental documents of PJA/ PJAK (Women´s Freedom Party/Kurdish Women Workers Party) in-clude feminist theses like the one that women are an oppressed class. Neither in the "Women's Liberation Ideology", one of Ocalans principal theses concerning the women's issue, nor in the program of PJAK the position of women as oppressed gender is connected in any way to the existence of the private property. However a program, a strategy or principal tactic, which does not take into consideration the classes and class struggle, is not able to solve the women's issue or develop a liberation project by putting the woman into its centre. In the documents of PJA/PJAK, women are characterized as the "oldest and lowest class". Well, although it is true that women were the first ones, who have been oppressed, and, as Bebel said, the woman was the first slave of humanity, from that does not result that women, which are half of all humanity, are a class of its own.
PJA/PJAK follows the typical feminist approach to unite women from different classes under the banner of "sisterhood".
In spite of the fact, that the Kurdish women's movement has a clear feminist character today, it nevertheless is a progressive movement which led the women from the domestic prison of the feudal family bounds into the freedom of the armed struggle in the mountains. Today, there are only very few democratic women's movements, which are so deeply rooted among the labouring women and obtained so many concrete achievements as the Kurdish women's movement.
Likewise, in many colonized and dependent countries, the petite-bourgeois women's movements and feminist trends or trends influenced by feminism are an important component of the democratic women's movement and they are important allies for the proletarian women within the democratic women's movement.

Attacks of the imperialist globalisation and resistance of the labouring women

In the context of the increasing internationalisation of production and trade, many attacks are carried out against the labouring people, among them privatisations, increasing of the informal sector, increasing transition to flexible working conditions and similar measures. In particular the labouring women are affected in high dimensions by these attacks because they are working mainly in part-time, outwork or precarious work conditions, where in many cases not the slightest rights are guaranteed and the lowest wages are paid. However, in spite of the very difficult conditions, also in this area there are struggles of the labouring women for their rights. One out of many examples is the women working in the informal sector in India. In India, many women, who are living in the villages or suburbs, are working cash in hand as servants or domestics in the city centres. They have to spend a big part of the low wages for the travel costs. With the intervention of a revolutionary organisation, those women started to organise around the demand of a cheap monthly ticket, thus a movement was born, which obtained this demand. However, as the women are not officially registered and organized, this ticket was still not given to them, moreover, during the ticket controls they frequently suffer from sexual assaults. Thus, the consciousness of the need of being organised developed. Beginning with the concrete demand for the monthly ticket, a struggle was born, which concluded with the foundation of the trade-union "All Bengal Domestic Women's Helper Organisation" and through it the branch was recognized in some places as an official sector and the employment relationship gained an official character. Nowadays, this struggle continues with new demands as for instance for pensions. This example shows that by means of putting concrete demands it is possible even under hard conditions, to create a close relation with the labouring women and a movement, which obtains concrete achievements.

The struggle of the labouring women for the right of housing

Another example for the active role of the labouring women in the struggles against the neo-liberal politics is the struggle for the right of housing, which is highly topical from Brazil to Turkey. Women, whose life is limited within their four walls and who carry the whole responsibility for the household on their shoulders, are often the most active and militant part of the resistances for the right of housing. We would like to give one example of this from the struggle against house demolition in Ayazma, Istanbul. In the framework of the "Project for Urban Change" of the AKP government, the plan was to raze the whole quarter to the ground and give way to the projects of the big construction firms, but resistance stirred.
On the occasion of the preparatory work for March 8, the women of the Association of Labouring Women ( EKD ) started to work among the women of the quarter under danger of demolition. Given the fact that the majority of the women are illiterate, you couldn't get anywhere with leaflets. Instead of written materials, the activists from the EKD visited the women of Ayazma in their houses, had long conversations with them and tried hard to find a common language. Although the women participated actively in the protests and actions and often made the most militant proposals, they shrank from participating in the committee built and the discussion meetings against the demolition of the houses. Women have few experiences in social activities and they often limit themselves to house and family, the reactionary family structures and traditions make it more difficult to speak freely in the presence of men and discuss their opinion. Besides, they are lacking in self-confidence. For all these reasons, special mechanisms are necessary in order to integrate women into the struggle. The women commission, which was built in Ayazma in the course of the militant struggle against the house demolition, was one of the most important and determined parts of the movement.

Equal pay for equal work: Danish women on strike

Many people think that in Europe equality of men and women is already achieved, but despite the fact, that laws guaranteeing formal equality are in force there, reality shows something else. First of all in the field of work it is obvious, that women do not have equal rights and are still discriminated. In the UK for instance, 30,000 women are dismissed every year because of being pregnant.
In Germany, the "law on equality of man and woman" came to force in July 1, 1958, but even today, women earn 24% less than men. In Denmark, equal pay was officially introduced in 1973 after a big struggle with 250,000 workers on strike. However, formal equal pay is still only a piece of paper, as the following example shows: Female workers in the health sector earn only 81 Danish kroner for every 100 the male workers are paid. This was one of the main reasons for more than 100,000 public sector workers, a big majority of them female workers, to go on strike in Denmark in spring 2008. The strike included kindergarden workers, nurses, healthcare assistants and other medical staff and was sparked off by the collective wage negotiations, as the right-wing government has imposed a 12.8% rise in pay, pensions and bonuses spread over the next three years, what actually would not even keep up with inflation. After many wildcat strikes during the last years in the public sector against privatization, the replacement of skilled personnel with unskilled labour, thriving of sub-contracting, very stressful working conditions and low wages, the protests culminated in the biggest strike ever in the public sector.
The Danish female workers also gained a massive support of the people, 80% of the population support the strikers' demand for a minimum 15% pay rise. Moreover, in the neighbouring Sweden thousands of health care workers walked off the job demanding higher wages, too.
After two month of struggle, nurses, midwives and laboratory assistants decided to go back to work after agreeing to a 13.3% pay hike over three years and the public employees, who work in nurseries and kindergartens, also announced an end to their four-week strike after accepting a 12.8 percent raise.
The result of this strike may not be very successful concerning the pay hikes achieved, but undoubtedly it was a rich experience for the female Danish workers to be followed by many more struggles.

Democratic women's movement and national liberation struggle: Northern Kurdistan

In Northern Kurdistan, where still many feudal elements are existing in the traditions and family relations, the production still contains semi-feudal remnants and women are exposed to a triple oppression because in addition to the class and gender oppression there is also the national one, a strong women's movement developed in connection with the national liberation struggle of the Kurdish people.
Together with the increasing spread of the guerilla warfare in the 90s, the national liberation struggle in Kurdistan also seized the women. Initially, women became active as mothers and wives, but later on women participated in all spheres, including the armed struggle. The active participation in the armed struggle was a first step for the Kurdish women in their search for freedom.
Although the leadership of the PKK supported the participation of women, in the beginning they were confronted with strong resistance also within the organisation itself. It happened frequently that women coming to the guerrilla were sent back from the current commander. Almost 300 cases of women are known, who came to the guerrilla, were not taken in and as a result of this fell into the hands of the enemy and were assassinated.
In 1992-93 discussions on building a special organisation of women within the guerrilla begun and after sharp internal arguments and with the great support of Ocalan, in the midst of the 90s, finally the women achieved to be accepted in the guerrilla, also by taking on the most heavy tasks, and in 1995, YAJK (Free-dom Movement of Kurdish Women) was founded as the women's wing of the guerrilla. They started to organise units consisting only of women and thus the process of the militarization of women started. This step was of high importance for the struggling wo-men and strengthened their self-confidence, the soli-darity and the organisation among women. The foundation of YAJK was a result of the needs of that time. So, the first Kurdish women organisation was born as a part of the guerrilla, in the democratic area there was no work among women worth mentioning at that time.
Today, the Kurdish women's movement has its own army structure, the YJA-STAR, the women party PAJK and the YJA, which is active in the area of democratic mass work. Furthermore, there are of course many more different organisations of the democratic Kurdish women's movement, as for instance the Mothers for Peace or the Women departments of the DTP . In all organisations of the national Kurdish movement the rule of a proportion of a 33% of women is valid and really applied today. The Kurdish women's movement is today doubtlessly the most effective and massive force within the democratic women's movement in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan.
By means of the active participation in the national liberation struggle, the Kurdish women also started to rebel against their position as oppressed gender and are trying do change it. This way, in connection with the national liberation struggle of the Kurdish nation, an enormous democratic women's movement developed, which achieved gigantic radical changes in a society, were bride price, so called honour killings and a still strong feudal oppression of women are reality.

Women are rebelling against reactionary structures in family and society: Nepal

Another illustration of the today's international women's movement, that contains many important and encouraging experiences, is the democratic revolution in Nepal.
In this country, were semi-feudal relations of production and a feudal political system predominated; the process of the democratic revolution under the leadership of the Communist Party Nepal (Maoist) has obtained important achievements. Doubtlessly, the Nepalese women have contributed a lot to that. Already in the beginning of the peoples war in February 1996, the women organised in the All Nepalese Women's Association (Revolutionary) have distinguished themselves by breaking the tense silence after the first historical strike in Nepal, which marked the beginning of the peoples war on February 13, by organising a seminar on the occasion of March 8, 1996 despite repression being highly probable, were they underlined the need for a comprehensive revolution for the liberation of women. It was the women from the lowest caste in the western district of Nepal Kalikot, who were the first ones, who snatched rifles from reactionary armed forces and handed them over to the CPN (M).
The CPN (M) understood the central role of women in the struggle for revolution in the right way and tried hard to create special means in order to integrate women into the struggle not only in the typical role as supporters or in the area of women's issues but also in leading positions. A special women department of the Central Committee (CC) was built, which has the task to develop politics for raising the potential of women to a higher level in order to integrate more women in policy-making organs in all three fronts: party, army, united front. Furthermore, there is the rule of a women proportion of 33% at all levels of the CPN (M), which really is applied. This policy already led to encouraging results, for instance at present, many women are in the CC of the CPN (M), dozens are working at regional level and hundreds at district level and several thousands at local and cell level of the party. In the Peoples Liberation Army many women are commander or vice-commander in the different brigades, platoons, squads and militias. There are separate women's sections in the brigade like women platoons, women squad teams, women militia teams functioning in the field. Regional women militias also participate actively together with peasants in people's courts, where informers, drunkards, gamblers, womanizers, and cheaters are punished.
In spite of many progresses concerning the activation of women in the revolutionary lines, there are still many problems, however in a country like Nepal, which still has heavy feudal marks, this should not be surprising. According to the words of Parwati from the leadership of the CPN (M), men are continuing to develop in the military field even when they have reached beyond 40 years of age, while women are hardly seen to continue in this field beyond 25 years. She states that one of the main reasons for this is the institution of marriage, which has robbed many of promising women leaders, because even within the party marriage and children are still a problem for the continuity of women's leadership. Actually many women complained that having a baby is like being under disciplinary penalty, because they are cut off from the Party activities for a long period.
Moreover, there is often a pressure on women´s cadres to marry because unmarried women are causing a lot of mistrust among both men and women, and this fact leads to marriages against the wish of women or before they are ready for it. There is also a tendency to take sexual offenses more seriously than political offenses. Although these kind of backward traditions and behaviors still have a lot of influence, there are more and more women who are rebelling against these oppressing and politically wrong marriages. Widows dare more and more to marry again, which is condemned by the orthodox tradition of Hinduism. These examples are for sure important achievements of the Nepali revolutionaries but at the same time they show, how deeply the oppression of women is still rooted in the society and how much still have to be done in this area.

Struggle against sexual violence under detention in Turkey

Sexual assault and violation are not only a general problem of which women as oppressed gender are affected by but also a method of torture applied in many countries systematically. In Turkey and North-ern Kurdistan the fascist regime applied this kind of torture especially during the dirty war in the 90s in Kurdistan and in the prisons. In the society of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan, marked by Muslim and backward ideas of honour, it is also very difficult for the victims of violation to face these attacks because the family and the society is prejudiced in the traditional ideas of honour and often not take the side of the victim but distance from her. Therefore, the state aims with the torture of violation at isolating and making surrender the women. Fear, embarrassment, and social pressure make it impossible for many violated women to talk about it and charge the perpetrators.
In the end of the 90s, again and again revolutionary and communist women of different organisations have been violated by state forces and single resistances started to develop by making these crimes public. In this situation, the communist women within and without the prisons started to discuss the issue among them. As a result of these discussions a broad campaign against sexual assault and violation under detention was launched in the end of December 19 99, which gained a lot of influence within a short period of time. The campaign has the aim to inform the public opinion, to charge those responsible, to organize juridical, psychological and social support for those affected by these attacks and to organize a broad participation in the trials opened against the violators and to make the problem known within the whole country and worldwide. In the framework of this campaign they paid a lot of importance to questioning the terms of honour and the social bourgeois-feudal ideas of values, as this seemed to be inevitable for a successful work. The campaign went on for more than 6 months and culminated in a conference "No to sexual assault and violation under detention", which took place from June 10-11, 2000 in Istanbul. The three main topics of the conference were 1) violation during war 2) violation under torture and 3) struggle against violation. At the conference some women talked for the first time in public about what they experienced and denounced those responsible. The conference gave not only immense courage and power to the delegates but turned into a source of resistance for the whole democratic women's movement. Breaking the taboo, denouncing the crimes in public, questioning the backward ideas of honour and the strong solidarity with those affected not only strengthened the struggle against sexual assault and violation but also really intimidated the Turkish state. Due to this determinately carried out campaign this form of attack could be fought back to a great extend and cases of sexual assaults and violation under detention decreased noticeably.

The labouring women's movement today is a colourful mosaic

Of course there are countless examples and experiences more of significant struggles and movements of the labouring women in different areas apart from those mentioned here. From the Columbian women fighting in the rows oft he FARC with the weapon in hand against the reactionary regime and imperialism, the indigene women oft he Mexican Atenco, who continued their resistance in spite of mass violations, the African women, who are fighting against AIDS, hunger, poverty and war, to the female workers struggling against the brutal exploitation in the free trade zones in South Korea and for dignified conditions of work and life and the women in Brazil fighting for land a diverse picture of struggles, which the labouring women are conducting today turns out. Judging it by both, its forms of action and by its contents and ideological points of view, the democratic women's movement is as diverse as the World March of Women, which adopted another character almost in every country. Nevertheless, there are many things in common concerning the type of problems as well as the demands raised, from which many root points for cooperation in the framework of the democratic and revolutionary women's work may result.
In order to create an international organisation of women today, it is necessary to show efforts especially for the ripening of some pre-conditions. However, in the field of concrete coordination of the struggles, actions of solidarity and international conferences, where experiences and points of view may be exchanged, even today a lot more is possible than actually happens. In this context, it is a duty to increase solidarity among the labouring women and the women's organisations both at national and international level.
An impressing example for such a form of action and organisation of the labouring women are the women meetings taking place every year in Argentina.
For 23 years the labouring women are meeting every year in Argentina and discussing together many different topics affecting them. In the beginning, 700 women met, today they are tens of thousands, who celebrate their achievements and continue their struggles. However, with the years passing by not only the number of participants enormously increased, also the debates became more diverse and deep. Women from social, feminist, political, students, trade-unionist, human right, neighbouring districts, cultural and environmental organisations as well as from organisations for the right of land, housing and sexual diversity are meeting with women from many more fields like pensioners, indigenous women, unemployed women, those who are believing and those who do not etc and discus a wide spectrum of topics, which concern women generally or currently. From issues like sports, health, and communication to political strike, violation and abortion nearly no sphere of life remains untouched. The women are discussing in a democratic way in workshops, are exchanging ideas, are learning from each other, analysing their experiences and developing prospects for future struggles.
The countrywide women's meetings, where also women delegations, above all from Latin America and also from other countries of the world are participating, contributed a lot to the understanding how the political, economical, cultural, religious and social systems are build historically on the basis of the gender and social division of labour and produce patriarchal and capitalist hierarchies and oppression. At the meetings, women question not only political and economical structures of power, but also cultural, ethnical and social conventions, forced on them for thousands of years.
The yearly meetings of the labouring women in Argentina, where the application of direct democracy is given a special importance, are playing a significant role for the activation and organisation of the democratic women's movement. Every year, the women are returning with new energy, new insights and concrete actions plans from the meetings and the results are visible in more self-confidence and being ready for playing a leading role or also in country-wide campaigns, like the one demanding freedom to Romina Tejerina, which turned into an important pillar of the struggle of the Argentinean women's movement against violence, violation and patriarchal justice.
What needs to be done is to create such examples of permanent forms of organisation, through which it was successful to integrate the broad masses of the labouring women and to activate them, also elsewhere.

Socialism and women's emancipation

The source of the oppression of woman is the private property. Since the transition from collective property to private property and the division of the society into classes, women have been oppressed not only as members of the oppressed classes or nations, but also because of the gender oppression.
The emancipation of women and all humanity will be possible by abolishing the classes and the private property and reaching communism. This task can only be fulfilled if the working class, as the most revolutionary class, completes its mission. Half of the working class consists of women and the task of the communist work among women is to win these women for the communist party and for socialism. Socialism, the first stage of communism, abolishes the private property of the principal means of production and thus opens the way leading to the emancipation of women. However, the complete emancipation of women will be in communism, where any kind of private property and the class society will vanish.
Socialism does not only open the way for the emancipation of women by abolishing the private property of the means of production, but at the same time fights on the front lines with the measures taken by the socialist power and the laws adopted against the oppression of women, reaction and the reactionary traditions and social values remaining from the old society. We cannot consider the problem of the emancipation of women as process proceeding gradually and automatically, but the force of power itself will be used in order to organise this process effectively. Housework like cooking, looking after children and washing will be socialised, violence against women will be banned and punished severely, by means of laws the relation between man and women will turn into a voluntary association, by the increasing participation of women in production and social life, the way for their development will be paved, by means of mechanisms of positive discrimination, the participation of women in education, production and political life will be insistently increased. By these and many more concrete steps, the emancipation of women and together with women the emancipation of the whole society will advance on the road to freedom.

The communists, the Comintern and the women's issue

Already in the times of the International I, the international communist movement treated the women's issue as a central question and put it especially during the Comintern determinately at the agenda. In 1920, at the time of the II World Congress of the Comintern, the International Women's Secretariat (IWS) of the Comintern was founded, which had an own central leadership and an own apparatus and committees according to that working also in public, and it actively interfered in many struggles. However, in spite of many positive developments and achievements lasting until today, like March 8, International Day of Struggle of the Labouring Women, which was introduced as an international day of struggle by the Secretary in 1921 in honour of the role played by the women in the Russian revolution following a tradition of the International II, the communist work among women of the Comintern remained limited in its long-term results.
In 1926, the Women's Secretariat was reformed and finally, in 1935, completely disbanded. It is an omission, that this period has not yet been analyzed in detail by the international communist movement. Although the communist women´s work undertook important steps in the framework of the Comintern, it was still very much at the beginning if considered all in all. This becomes obvious very clearly when looking at the number of women within the communist parties, which is an important criteria for the success of communist work among women. At that time, Czechoslovakia reached the highest number of female party members with 20%. In Norway, 19.7% of the party members were women, in Germany, 17% of the 130.000 Members of the Communist Party of Germany were female in 1928, in Switzerland 13% and in the UK 14.2%. Although, in many parties oft he Comintern the situation was much worse. In the Communist Party of France for example, the percentage was only 3-4% in 1924 and fell to 1.7% in 1926 and even to 0.6% in 1929. In Italy, the situation was similar.
After the October revolution, which was a great leap forward on the way of the liberation of women, many measures for the improvements of the situation of women were introduced. Among others, steps to-wards the socialization of housework and education of children, day-nurseries, introduction of launderettes, public canteens, legalization of termination of pregnancy, introduction of civil marriage and civil divorce were taken. However, even in the socialist Soviet Union many remnants of the thousands-of-years-long oppression of women remained in several fields of social life like production, family and political activity and this also affected negatively the active participation of women in developing and leading the political process at higher levels. Consequently, the number of women in the central committee after the October revolution was never more than 3 and the number of substitute members never more than 6 women. In times, when the number of CC members was in total 70 on average, not more than 3 women were represented there. At the party congresses in the period from 1912 to 1952, the percentage of female delegates was between 1% to maximum 13.9%.
Despite all the disadvantageous conditions, all the negative tradition inherited and all the difficulties, this scene deserves to be questioned.
Furthermore we have to take into consideration, that men have thousand of years of experiences of leadership, meanwhile the world of women essentially is restricted to kitchen and children. It would be illusory to expect that this vast difference of the different preconditions of men and women can be overcome in a few years.

Problems of the communist work among women today: From March 8 to March 8

Today, the labouring women unambiguously are worldwide part of the sections of society most exposed to poverty, lack of rights, exploitation and oppression. 70% of the 1.3 billion of the poorest people are women. The labouring women are representing a big potential for the revolutionary movement.
In spite of many difficulties and organisational weaknesses, there are many struggles and resistances, where women are standing in the first lines; be it against the demolition of houses in the labouring districts, against national oppression, against sexual violence, for better working conditions in the factories, for the right to healthcare, education etc. However, the majority of these struggles is lacking in a continuous organisation and a revolutionary leadership. On one hand, this is caused by the fact, that in our days the revolutionary and communist parties are quiet small and without influence in general, but on the other hand this is also due to the fact that the existing revolutionary and communist organisations and parties are weak especially in developing a practical policy or have a wrong attitude concerning the women's issue.
All in all, it is conspicuous that the communist work among women is very weak and that a communist women's movement in the world, which is able to win the masses of the labouring women for revolution and socialism, is out of the question today.
Many revolutionary and communist organisations remember the women's issue once a year on March 8, but during the rest of the year there is no special, continuing women's work. Unfortunately, the lacking in a permanent, organisational anchored work among women is often accompanied by an arrogant, sectarian attitude towards existing initiatives in the women's work, what leads to the sad situation, that the communists and revolutionaries effectively postpone the struggle for the emancipation of women to an unfixed date after revolution.
The current situation of the democratic women's movement in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan is a typical example of this. One trend within the movement is ideologically based on the radical and socialist feminist trends and the reformist parties following it. Another one is the red trend, which gained continuity and special organisations and is carried out persistently for years by the communist women. And a third trend is formed by the other revolutionary organisations, which tackle women's work from March 8 to March 8 and therefore are not able to save themselves from lacking of policy in their attitude, neither on March 8 nor concerning the other problems of women. The ideological struggle continuing between the first two trends, however not leading to an end of the unity in action for years, finally, on March 8, 2005 turned out into the situation, that for the first time after years the communist women split from the feminists, the Kurdish women and reformist parties like EMEP and ODP , who persisted in celebrating March 8 without men, and decided to have a separate meeting. The other revolutionary organisations, which did not participate in the organisation of the celebrations of March 8 under the pretext of the presence of the feminists, which did not show any efforts in order to push back the hegemony of feminism through participating together with the communist women in the March 8 activities and other women platforms, which do not even on March 8 more than just talking about women's issue, decided to take part in the organisation of March 8 that year following the proposal of the communist women. However, finally they also separated from the communist women and organised a March 8 at the square of Beyazit isolated from the masses of labouring women. The communist women organised, in contrast, another meeting at the square of Kadikoy based on their own forces and the masses of labouring women.
Whereas the division with the feminists was a classic example of how they direct themselves against, first of all, revolutionary men and thus against the unity of the labourers, the attitude of the majority of the revolutionary organisations was a sad example of a high-flown and narrow attitude of mass work, of how far away they are from the labouring masses of women and from seeing and being willing to change their own reality. Without carrying out a continuous mass work among the women workers, building organisations in the labouring districts and launching political campaign among women, they want to give the class character back to March 8 in one single day.
However, unfortunately the attitudes of many revolutionary and communist organisations at international level are not other than this. In the praxis, the international revolutionary and communist movement does not show the appropriate weight and interest to the women's issue. This is to be seen on the hand at the lacking attention paid and the lacking exertion of influence in the democratic women's movement, and on the other hand, also in the way of approaching the communist work among women. The attitude to postpone the struggle for the emancipation of women to sometime after revolution unfortunately is still very common and thus priority to the work among labouring women is given seldom. Several parties calling themselves communist are not working in democratic women organisations and have also no special means internally for the mobilisation and integration of women in the struggle for revolution and socialism, although it is evident that women are in a special situation due to the hundred years of slavery and the double oppression compared with their class brothers and that it is necessary to develop special means in order to organise and win them for socialism.
Another wrong view is to limit work among women to the typical problems of women. This unavoidably leads to the situation that in the centre of women's work are not the proletarian women, being part of the most revolutionary class, but the most oppressed stratums like housewives and victims of violence. This way, the class character of the women's issue, similar to the way feminists do that, is ignored.
Some times, revolutionary and communist organisations even fall behind some formally applied measures of the bourgeoisie or bourgeois movements. In bourgeois parties there are many women in leading positions, like for example Christina Kirchner, Michelle Bachelet, Angela Merkel, Gloria Arroyo or Condolezza Rice, just to mention some of them. The fact, that this is not the slightest progress for the emancipation of women, on the contrary, that these women are carrying out an enemy policy against the laboring classes, half of them women, should not make us forget the glaringly obvious weakness of the revolutionary and communist organizations.
Another example is that due to the influence of the feminists, even at the meetings of the social forums the rule prevails that men and women may take the floor alternately. As women also there are lesser than men in number, women are privileged. Yet, at activities and meetings of revolutionaries it is not unusual that mostly men speak meanwhile women hardly get the chance to speak. In terms of representation, the revolutionary and communist movement is in general old and male. We cannot simply accuse such facts by the fact that it is us, who have got the true program for the liberation of women.

Guarantee of continuous work among women: special organisations

In order to develop a continuous work among the masses of labouring women and to win the female workers for the communist party, special means are necessary. Here we have to notice that not the agendas of struggle, but the organisational means are special! Work among women does not necessarily mean to approach the women with their special problems, but to mobilise them by use of special means, according to the women's psychology, for the social struggle as a whole. Concerning this, our party writes in the documents of its unity congress: "The most typical and common form of narrowness is to understand from the work among women to explain to the women, the women as the oppressed gender, the women's issue and to reduce work among women to that or to see it as something limited to that. ... It is absolutely correct and necessary that the party applies special methods in the work among women, taking into account the special psychology of women, however this does not mean that the party takes, or should take, the women's issue as the basis of its propaganda, agitation and organisation in the work among women."
One form of the special means for the organisation of women at the level of the communist party is the women's committees. There should exist such women's committees, which do not form a parallel structure but are linked to every party organ from the very bottom up to the Central Committee, at all levels of the party structure. Only the existence of permanent organs guarantees continuous work.
A parallel structure would go into the direction of a women's party, which is contrary to the fundamental idea of Marxism-Leninism to unite the most progressive part, the vanguard of the working class in one party and not divide it into gender or ethnic origin. Since any political power is the power of a class, political parties, which are the tools of a class to conquer the power, are the highest form of organisation of a class and as women are no class of its own the idea of a special party only for women is wrong.
Another important mechanism is the "positive discrimination". Given the fact that men and women do not have the same preconditions due to the social conditions, same treatment means nothing else but discrimination of women. In order to compensate this disadvantage and to promote the political development of women, our party uses the "positive discrimination". This means that women get specially promoted in a systematic way and supported in their development.
The communist parties have two fundamental tasks in the women's work. One aspect is the work within the democratic women's movement and the other to win the proletarian women for the communist party. Our party formulated this in the documents of the unity congress as follows: "Under the social order and political regime of today, the democratic women's movement, consisting of different elements and not being homogenous, is an important reserve of the proletariat. To work for mobilising the broadest wo-men masses of the democratic women's movement, being a reserve of the proletarian revolution, on the line of the party is one dimension and form of applying the strategy of revolution of the party and trying to establish the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution. The communist vanguard should support the women in every democratic push, in every conflict they enter with the capital, it should be the most determined and consequent militant of their cause.
Secondly, half of the proletarian (and labouring) masses are female proletarians and labourers. So that the communist vanguard can organise them as the half of the army of revolution, it should take the work among proletarian and labouring (and young) women as half of the party work. Beyond winning and mobilising the reserve, the communist work among women is the problem of organising the proletarian women, forming the half of the army of the revolution of the organisation, in the ranks of the MLCP-F."
Furthermore, it is another urgent task of the women's work of the communists to organise and develop the women's work at international level. In many areas of the class struggle the need for international solidarity and coordination has been understood already and initiatives corresponding to that have been developed. However, in the sphere of women's work we are still in our infancy meanwhile the bourgeois and petite-bourgeois women obtained at least a certain level of international communication and networking.
Today more than ever, in the face of recent weakness of the communist women's work, international contacts and exchanges are important, in order to learn from each other, to exchange experiences and to strengthen the struggles of the labouring women in different countries. To postpone this task until a better cooperation develops among the communist parties themselves would be wrong. On the contrary, cooperation in solidarity of the revolutionary and communist women can also contribute to developing and deepening the relations among the revolutionary and communist organisations.
Let us conclude with the words of Inessa Armand, who rightly said that if the emancipation of women is unthinkable without communism, also communism is unthinkable without the complete emancipation of women.