The Peace and Freedom Party presents
Women, War, Peace, and Socialism
International Women’s Day has become a corporate-led exercise in identity politics, but this wasn’t always the case. International Working Women’s Day was started by socialist women with a working class agenda. After a brief presentation on the origins of IWD, we will turn to our speakers, Cindy Sheehan, PFP candidate for Vice President (2012) and Ann Garrison, KPFA reporter and antiwar activist, to discuss the role of women in resisting war, making peace, and fighting for liberation.
FREE! (Please buy food & drink at the Pub.) FREE!
This is part of our on-going Socialist Forum Series on the first Saturday of every month. Doors open at 2 pm and the program will start promptly at 2:30 pm. The forum will end by 4:30 pm, but folks can stay and talk as long as you like. Speaker’s affiliations are listed for identification only. The opinions expressed do not reflect the official views of the Peace and Freedom Party.
For information, contact Gene: 510-332-3865 email: cuyleruyle [at] mac.com
The Peace and Freedom Party, born from the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s, is committed to socialism, democracy, ecology, feminism, racial equality, and internationalism.
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org
NARRATIVE
About International Working Women’s Day, the Russian Revolution, and Socialism
Although International Women’s Day has morphed into a corporate-led exercise in identity politics, this was not always the case. International Working Women’s Day was organized by socialist women with a working class, socialist agenda. As Clara Zetkin (1857-1933), the Founder of International Working Women’s Day, noted in 1896. “The liberation struggle of the proletarian woman cannot be similar to the struggle that the bourgeois woman wages against the male of her class. On the contrary, it must be a joint struggle with the male of her class against the entire class of capitalists.”
Her close comrade, Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952) one of twelve members of the Bolshevik Central Committee who led the October Revolution, wrote in 1920: “This is not a special day for women alone. The 8th of March is a historic and memorable day for the workers and peasants, for all the Russian workers and for the workers of the whole world. On this day in 1917 the women of Petrograd raised the torch of proletarian revolution and set the world on fire. After the experience of the Russian October revolution, it is clear to every working woman in France, in England and in other countries that only the dictatorship of the working class, only the power of the soviets can guarantee complete and absolute equality,” Kollontai’s close comrade, Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), also understood that: “the success of a revolution depends on the participation of women. No party or revolution in the world has ever dreamed of striking so deep at the roots of the oppression and inequality of women as the Soviet revolution is doing.”
However, it was difficult to implement the Bolshevik’s radical program for women’s liberation with the poverty and ruin created by years of war, imperialist intervention, and Civil War. But as the Soviet Union industrialized, large numbers of women entered the labor force, many in good paying industrial jobs. The Bolsheviks encouraged women’s employment and education with vocational and professional training. And they created a massive system of day care institutions and workers’ dining halls.
The Soviet Union industrialized more rapidly than any other nation in history, before or after. The costs of industrialization were great, but the costs of not industrializing would have been even greater. Soviet women played an important role in the Antifascist war of 1941-45, both as workers and as soldiers.
Some 800,000 Soviet women volunteered to fight alongside men, many in combat roles. Among them was Lyudmila Pavlichenko (1916-1974) listed as the third deadliest sniper of all time, male or female. Her 309 confirmed kills is nearly twice that Chris Kyle, who made millions with his best-selling book, American Sniper, The big difference was not numbers, however, but why they fought. Kyle was a sniper for U.S. imperialism, killing Iraqis in their homeland. On the other hand, Pavlichenko only killed Nazis who were invading her home. When asked how many men she had killed, Pavlichenko replied: “Not men. Fascists. Every Nazi who remains alive will kill women, children and old folks. Dead Nazis are harmless. Therefore, if I kill a Nazi, I am saving lives.” After the defeat of Fascism, Pavlichenko, who had a Masters Degree in History, worked as a researcher for the Soviet Navel Academy and enjoyed the benefits of all Soviet women, including full equality under the Soviet constitution, along with guaranteed employment and free health care and education for herself and her children-rights still only dreams for American women.
Women’s struggle for equality and socialism continues, even under the harshest conditions. We are also dedicating today’s program to a young Palestinian woman who just spent her 17th birthday in an Israeli prison. Ahed Tamimi, born Jan 30, 2001, was indicted by an Israeli military court after a video showing her slapping an Israeli soldier went viral. The incident occurred in the occupied West Bank after Israeli troops shot Tamimi’s 14-year-old cousin in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet and fired tear gas canisters into her family’s home. Witnesses report that the soldier actually slapped the 16-year-old girl first, causing her to slap back. Nevertheless, according to Democracy Now, Jan 2, 2018, Israeli prosecutors are keeping Tamimi in jail while she awaits trial and a possible 10 year sentence. Who believes she will receive a fair trial?
Free Ahed Tamimi, End the Occupation
