It is important for women all over the world, as it is evidence of the capacity of women, of the great value of the work they do for society. ![]() Many of them work day and night either in the Party or among the workers and peasants or in the Red Army. They hold important posts in the Soviets, Executive Committees, People’s Commissariats, and public offices of every kind. “It’s true that we have reliable, intelligent and tireless women in our Party. In general, it must be acknowledged that even the ladies of the ‘Constitutional Democrats’ in Petrograd showed greater courage in fighting us than those wretched military Cadets.” Yes, our working women are magnificent class fighters. But they are holding out because they want to defend the Soviets, because they want freedom and communism. What courage they showed and how courageous they still are! Imagine the suffering and privation they are enduring. We would not have won without them, or hardly. “In Petrograd, here in Moscow, and in other cities and industrial centres, proletarian women showed up splendidly during the revolution. “That is true, it’s wonderful,” Lenin remarked with a faint smile. It alone supplied the international Communist women’s movement with a valuable trained and experienced force and set a great example for history. As for the standing and activity of women in the Bolshevik Party, I thought that it was a model party indeed, the model party. I was full of enthusiasm for everything Russian women had done during the revolution and what they were doing now for its defense and further development. I had already heard from others what Lenin was now telling me and I expressed my amazement. It is to draft a resolution, theses and directives but has made little progress so far. A committee is still in charge of the matter. It posed the question but did not get around to taking a definite stand. Our Second International Congress unfortunately did not come up to expectations in discussing the question of women. We must draw a sharp line between us and all other parties. Here, too, we Communists need the greatest clarity of principle. “It is clear that without Marxist theory we cannot have proper practice. “We must by all means set up a powerful international women’s movement on a clear-cut theoretical basis,” he began after greeting me. ![]() ![]() Lenin sat at his desk, which was covered with books and papers, indicating study and work without the “brilliant disorder” associated with genius. We had our first lengthy talk on this subject in the autumn of 1920, in Lenin’s big study in the Kremlin. Needless to say he saw full social equality of women as a principle which no Communist could dispute. He obviously attached great importance to the women’s movement, which was to him an essential component of the mass movement that in certain circumstances might become decisive. A congress is a battlefield in which we fight for the knowledge we need for revolutionary action."Ĭomrade Lenin repeatedly discussed with me the problem of women’s rights. "A congress is not a parlor where women display their charm, as we read in novels.
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