Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin | |
---|---|
Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | |
Resting place | Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow |
Other names | Klara Zetkin |
Occupation(s) | Politician, peace activist and women's rights activist |
Political party | SPD (until 1917) USPD (1917–1922; Spartacus wing) KPD (1920–1933) |
Partner(s) | Ossip Zetkin (1850–1889) Georg Friedrich Zundel (1899–1928) |
Children | Maxim Zetkin (1883–1965) Konstantin "Kostja" Zetkin (1885–1980) |
Part of a series on |
Marxism |
---|
Part of a series on |
Communism |
---|
Communism portal Socialism portal |
Clara Zetkin (/ˈzɛtkɪn/; German: [ˈtsɛtkiːn]; née Eißner [ˈaɪsnɐ]; 5 July 1857 – 20 June 1933) was a German Marxist theorist, communist activist, and advocate for women's rights.[1]
Until 1917, she was active in the
Biography
Background and education
Clara Josephine Eißner (Eissner) was born the eldest of three children in
Because of the ban placed on socialist activity in Germany by Otto von Bismarck in 1878, Zetkin left for Zürich in 1882 and then went into exile in Paris, where she studied to be a journalist and a translator. During her time in Paris, she played an important role in the foundation of the Socialist International group.[1] She also adopted the name of her lover, the Russian-Jewish Ossip Zetkin , a devoted Marxist, with whom she had two sons, Maxim and Konstantin (known as Kostja). Ossip Zetkin became severely ill in early 1889 and died in June of that year. After the loss of her lover, Zetkin moved to Stuttgart with her children. She was married to artist Georg Friedrich Zundel, who was eighteen years her junior, from 1899 to 1928.[7]
Early engagement in Social Democratic Party
Her political career began after being introduced to Ossip Zetkin, whom she later married. Within a few months of attending and taking part in socialist meetings, Zetkin became entirely committed to the party, which offered a Marxist approach to the demand for women's liberation. Around the time of 1880, due to the political climate in Germany, Zetkin went into exile in Switzerland and later in France. Upon her return to Germany, nearly a decade later, she became the editor of the Social Democratic Party of Germany's newspaper for women, Die Gleichheit (Equality), a post that she occupied for 25 years.[8]
Having studied to become a teacher, Zetkin developed connections with the
Around 1898, Zetkin formed a friendship with the younger
Fight for women's rights
Zetkin was very interested in
However, Zetkin was deeply opposed to the concept of "bourgeois feminism," which she claimed was a tool to divide the unity of the
- The working women, who aspire to social equality, expect nothing for their emancipation from the bourgeois women’s movement, which allegedly fights for the rights of women. That edifice is built on sand and has no real basis. Working women are absolutely convinced that the question of the emancipation of women is not an isolated question which exists in itself, but part of the great social question. They realize perfectly clear that this question can never be solved in contemporary society, but only after a complete social transformation.[19]
She viewed the feminist movement as being primarily composed of upper-class and middle-class women who had their own class interests in mind, which were incompatible with the interests of working-class women. Thus, feminism and the socialist fight for women's rights were incompatible. In her mind, socialism was the only way to truly end the oppression of women. One of her primary goals was to get women out of the house and into work so that they could participate in trade unions and other workers rights organizations to improve conditions for themselves. While she argued that the socialist movement should fight to achieve reforms that would lessen female oppression, she was convinced that such reforms could only prevail if they were embedded into a general move towards socialism; otherwise, they could easily be eradicated by future legislation.[20]
She interviewed Vladimir Lenin on "The Women's Question" in 1920.[21]
Opposition to First World War
During the period of the
- Who profits from this war? Only a tiny minority in each nation: The manufacturers of rifles and cannons, of armor-plate and torpedo boats, the shipyard owners and the suppliers of the armed forces' needs. In the interests of their profits, they have fanned the hatred among the people, thus contributing to the outbreak of the war. The workers have nothing to gain from this war, but they stand to lose everything that is dear to them.[8]
Zetkin, along with
Joining Communist Party
In 1916 Zetkin was one of the co-founders of the
In January 1919, after the
Until 1924, Zetkin was a member of the KPD's central office. From 1927 to 1929, she was a member of the party's central committee. She was also a member of the executive committee of the Communist International (
In summer 1922, Zetkin was part of the prosecution team during the Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries in Moscow, but at other times, she was critical of Moscow's influence over the German Communist Party within which she was part of the right wing. She was removed from the Central Committee of the KPD when the left, led by Ruth Fischer took control. She opposed a policy decision made in Moscow in 1928 to get communist trade unions in Germany to split from the main socialist-dominated federation and form the rival Rote Gewerkschaftsbund. When Joseph Stalin put this to the executive of Comintern, in December 1928, Zetkin was one of only three members of the executive to vote against.[25]
In August 1932, despite having recently fallen gravely ill in Moscow, she returned to Berlin to preside over the opening of the newly elected Reichstag, as its oldest deputy. She used her opening address to call for workers to unite in the struggle against fascism:
- The most important immediate task is the formation of a United Front of all workers in order to turn back fascism [..] in order to preserve for the enslaved and exploited, the force and power of their organization as well as to maintain their own physical existence. Before this compelling historical necessity, all inhibiting and dividing political, trade union, religious and ideological opinions must take a back seat. All those who feel themselves threatened, all those who suffer and all those who long for liberation must belong to the United Front against fascism and its representatives in government.[26]
She was a recipient of the Order of Lenin (1932) and the Order of the Red Banner (1927).[7]
Exile and death
Soon after
After 1949, Zetkin became a much-celebrated heroine in the
Works
Posthumous honors
- Zetkin was memorialized on the ten mark banknote and twenty mark coin of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) (East Germany).
- After 1949, every major city in the GDR had a street named after her.
- In 1954, the GDR established the Clara Zetkin Medal (Clara-Zetkin-Medaille).
- In 1955, the city council of Leipzig established a new recreation area near the city center called "Clara-Zetkin-Park"[28]
- In 1967, a statue of Clara Zetkin, sculpted by GDR artist Walter Arnold, was erected in Johannapark, Leipzig in commemoration of her 110th birthday.
- In 1987, the GDR issued a stamp with her picture.
- Since 2011, the German party Clara-Zetkin-Frauenpreis]".
See also
References
- Gertrud Guillaume-Schack and banned in June 1886. Zetkin renamed the paper Die Gleichheit when she took over.[11]
- ^ a b c d e f "Zetkin, Clara * 5.7.1857, † 20.6.1933: Biographische Angaben aus dem Handbuch der Deutschen Kommunisten". Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur: Biographische Datenbanken. Retrieved 15 November 2014.
- ^ Clara Zetkin | bpb
- ^ Gilbert Badia, Clara Zetkin: Féministe Sans Frontières (Paris: Les Éditions Ouvrières 1993).
- ^ ISBN 978-0-389-20813-6.
- ISBN 978-0-7876-2556-6.
- ISBN 978-0-7178-0620-1.
- ^ a b c Clara Zetkin biography from the University of Leipzig (in German)
- ^ a b c Schulte, Elisabeth (7 November 2014). "Clara Zetkin, Socialism and Women's Liberation".
- ^ Nettl, J.P. (1966). Rosa Luxemburg. London: Oxford U.P. p. 371.
- ^ Clara Zetkin biography, Fembio.org. Accessed 14 October 2022. (in German)]
- ^ Mutert 1996, p. 84.
- ^ JSTOR 3180144.
- ^ a b "History of International Women's Day". United Nations. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
- .
- ^ ""International Socialist Congress, 1910; Second International Conference of Socialist Women". p. 21. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
- ^ "About International Women's Day". Internationalwomensday.com. 8 March 1917. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
- ^ "United Nations page on the background of the IWD". Un.org. Archived from the original on 11 March 2012. Retrieved 8 March 2012.
- .
- ^ S2CID 158348988.
- ^ Holland, Shelly. "The IWD Story". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 November 2018.
- Marxist Archives
- ISBN 978-90-04-27626-0.
- ^ Timeline of Clara Zetkin's life, at the Lebendiges Museum Online (LEMO)
- ^ Marxist Internet Archive Biography
- ^ Drachkovitch, Milorad M.; Lazitch, Branko (1966). The Comintern - Historical Highlights. New York: Frederick A, Praeger. p. 227.
- ^ Zetkin, Clara. "Fascism Must Be Defeated". The Socialist Worker.
- ^ "Clara Zetkin facts". Your Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
- ^ Clara-Zetkin-Park - Stadt Leipzig
Sources
- Mutert, Susanne (1996). "Femmes et syndicats en Bavière". Métiers, corporations, syndicalismes (in French). Presses Univ. du Mirail. ISBN 978-2-85816-289-5. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
Further reading
- Full works of Clara Zetkin available (in English) at the Marxist Internet archive
- Full works of Clara Zetkin available (in German) at the Marxist Internet archive
- Timeline of Clara Zetkin's life (in German), at the Lebendiges Museum Online (LEMO)
- Clara Zetkin, Clara Zetkin: Selected Writing, 1991, ISBN 0-7178-0611-1.
- Dorothea Reetz, Clara Zetkin as a Socialist Speaker, Intl. Pub, 1987, ISBN 0-7178-0649-9.
- Gilbert Badia, Clara Zetkin: Féministe Sans Frontières (Paris: Les Éditions Ouvrières 1993).
- Florence Hervé. (2023). "Clara Zetkin (1857–1933): A Rebel Building the Socialist and Communist International Women’s Movements." In: de Haan, F. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Communist Women Activists around the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13127-1_2
- ISBN 978-3320012281
- Karen Honeycutt, "Clara Zetkin: A left-wing socialist and feminist in Wilhelmian Germany," Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University, 1975
- Clara Zetkin biography at FemBio.org (in German)
- Clara Zetkin biography from the University of Leipzig (in German)
External links
- Media related to Clara Zetkin at Wikimedia Commons
- Quotations related to Clara Zetkin at Wikiquote
- Works by Clara Zetkin at Project Gutenberg
- Clara Zetkin at Spartacus Educational (biography, extracts)
- Zetkin at marxists.org (biography, some writings, links)
- Newspaper clippings about Clara Zetkin in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
- My Recollections of Lenin by Clara Zetkin