March 8 Zetkin Luxembourg. iron ladies
The holiday of March 8 has now acquired a romantic coloring. However, the names of the founders of "Women's Day" - Clara Zetkin And Rosa Luxembourg- ideology connected exclusively with the political struggle. But both ladies got involved in this fight thanks to their romantic hobbies.
Clara Zetkin (née Clara Eisner) and Rosa Luxembourg (née Rosalia Luxenburg)
Clara Zetkin,
born Clara Eisner
Native Penates
Hello from Engels
In 1882 he moved to Paris, to Osip, took his last name and gave birth to two sons. After 7 years, Osip died of tuberculosis. Clara rises at the head of the women's movement of the Social Democrats. "Bravo, Clara!" - Friedrich Engels speaks about her in a letter to friends.
In 1910, at the Second International Conference of Women Socialists in Copenhagen, she made a proposal to declare March 8 as International Women's Day. Rosa Luxembourg and other delegates support the proposal.
German quality
For a quarter of a century she was the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Equality, published in Stuttgart. The publication was sponsored by Robert Bosch, founder of the electrical engineering concern Bosch.
Strong bonds
At 40, she fell in love with the 22-year-old artist Georg Friedrich Zundel. They got married two years later. Happiness continued until the First World War. Clara condemned the war, and Georg went to the front in 1916. For 11 years, Clara did not give her husband a divorce. She gave up when she was already 70. And Georg married an old lover - Paula Bosch, daughter of Robert Bosch.
In "safe" hands
In August 1932, at the first meeting of the newly elected Reichstag (according to tradition, it is opened by the oldest of the former deputies, and Klara is already 75 years old) she said: “The demand of the moment is a united front of all working people in order to topple fascism!” And she gave the floor to the representative of the largest faction - Hermann Goering.
ROSA LUXEMBOURG,
née Rosalia Luxenburg
Change name
Rosalia was born on March 5, 1871 in the Kingdom of Poland (territory of the Russian Empire). She studied excellently at the gymnasium, but did not receive a gold medal - for her "oppositional attitude towards the authorities." Having moved to Zurich in 1889, she replaced the letter H in her surname with M, and the name Rosalia with the short Rose.
Marriage of convenience
She was married once and then by calculation - for the sake of German citizenship. In 1898, moving to Berlin, Rosa enters into a fictitious marriage with the youngest son of her Zurich householder, Gustav Lübeck. He was two years younger, worked as a typesetter in a printing house, and adhered to anarchist views. All the years of their acquaintance, they remained good friends, and after five years they divorced safely.
Compliment from the party
She was a petite, pretty woman with "big, expressive eyes," and her voice "was warm and vibrant," as the leader of the US Communist Party, Bertram Wolf, wrote about her in his memoirs. However, due to a congenital dislocation of the hip, Rosa had a severe limp all her life.
Together forever
Clara and Rosa eventually became close friends. The doors of the Zetkin house are always open for the "little fragile Rose". True, for some time Clara was offended by her friend because of the affair with her son, but time smoothed out the insult. In 1933, the dying Clara's last word is said to have been a name: "Rose."
22 vs 36
A rather long romance developed between Rosa and her youngest son ... Clara Zetkin (by that time the women had known each other for 9 years). Konstantin at the time of meeting was 22 years old, Rosa - 36 years old. She impressed him. The romance with Rosa lasted for several years, gradually the young man's feeling cooled down, but Rosa did not let him go. The army saved Konstantin: after eight years of relations, in 1915, he went to the front and never returned to Rosa. He lived happily until the age of 95, died in Canada.
Free Leo
Leo Jogihes is a Social Democrat from Vilnius. At the age of 19, Rosa wrote romantic letters to him. He also had political conversations with her and presented ideological brochures, warning that he was not ready to sacrifice freedom for the sake of bourgeois family values. Their sluggish relationship lasted over 20 years.
Love affair at work
She was in jail three times. In 1913 she was arrested for anti-war speeches. She was defended in court by a lawyer. Paul Levy. Rosa had a short and stormy romance with him. In 1919, an uprising of workers was suppressed in Berlin, Rosa was detained and killed on the same day. The body was thrown into the Landwehrkanal on the way to the prison. He was found only after almost five months.
Photo: Ullstein Bild / Vostock Photo, Clubbinman (CC-BY-SA), Andreas Praefcke (CC-BY)
"Clara had to endure her own son's love affair with her best friend Rose"
The March 8 holiday is inextricably linked with the names of its main creators and organizers - Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxembourg. Before Women's Day, we remembered how the personal life of fiery revolutionaries developed.
Both German communists sometimes mixed politics, party discipline and intimate life. The cocktail was explosive.
Party comrades often called Zetkin Wild Clara, thus emphasizing the uncompromising judgments characteristic of this woman, the ability for the most unexpected actions and ideas.
For example, during the powerful revolutionary upsurge that swept Germany in 1918, Clara, who occupied a prominent position in the party leadership, made a very original proposal to stimulate the revolutionary spirit of the rebels. She seriously suggested that women - supporters of socialist feminism, arrange holidays of free love for communist militants. Whoever fights well against the "rotten monarchy" then gets the maximum of carnal pleasures! (History is silent about how dense the ranks of voluntary revolutionary “pleasers” turned out to be in the end, but it is known from documents that there were cases of such “rewarding for revolutionary labor” at that time.)
An equally original “sex method” was proposed by Zetkin two years later, during the hostilities that unfolded in 1920 between Soviet Russia and “panist” Poland. Being a member of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic, Klara at one of the meetings stated from the rostrum that not a single wagon with weapons for the Polish troops, with machine tools for military factories built in Poland by the capitalists of the Entente, should cross the German border! And such a boycott, according to the revolutionary, could be ensured by “conscious proletarian women”: they should offer their love to any worker who refuses to participate in the implementation of military orders.
In the same peculiar way, she once agreed to solve the "women's question" for her closest friend and like-minded person. In 1907, Clara's 22-year-old son Konstantin became the lover of Rosa Luxemburg, who was almost 15 years older than him. Zetkin, for sure, was not happy with such a misalliance, but she did not take any decisive actions (including along the party line) against the seductress, although relations between the two prominent German revolutionaries became very strained for some time.
Far from banal were the family ties of Clara herself, nee Eissner. With her first husband, the revolutionary Osip Zetkin, she lived for 7 years, without formalizing the marriage, but taking his last name.
In 1897, 8 years after the death of her common-law spouse, 40-year-old Clara fell in love with a student of the Academy of Arts, the future artist Georg Friedrich Zundel. And although he was younger than the “partygenosse” lady by as much as 18 years, they soon got married.
A period of "bourgeois prosperity" began. Zundel received many orders for portraits, and his impressive fees allowed the spouses to buy their own house in a few years, and in 1906 to acquire property that was completely amazing for those times: a car. However, it didn't take long to ride it together. In pre-war 1914, Clara and Georg separated. (Almost simultaneously, another couple “fled in different directions” - son Konstantin and party ally Rosa. Both of these similar events again made the two women friends.)
Wild Clara then took revenge on her "ex" for many years, not giving him consent to an official divorce. This legal act took place only almost a decade and a half later, and the artist, freed from his former bonds, only then was able to marry the woman he had long loved - Paula Bosch, by the way, the daughter of the founder of the famous electrical concern.
The younger friend Rosa Luxembourg lived a much shorter life, she was killed in 1919.
In order to obtain German citizenship, she, a very young native of the Kingdom of Poland, had to enter into a fictitious marriage with a subject of the German Kaiser, Gustav Lübeck. But nine years later, true love happened - with the young Konstantin Zetkin.
Their relationship at first developed quite decently. The young man, together with his mother Clara Zetkin, was present in Stuttgart at the next congress of the Second International. Here he saw and heard Rosa, whose emotional speeches from the podium filled him with rapture. Shortly thereafter, the revolutionary volunteered to be Konstantin's mentor in the study of Marxism. Well, then these "political studies" together turned into a love relationship. Apparently, the son of her best friend remained the main man in the heart of Luxembourg for the rest of her - not long - life. After their breakup, Rose never remarried.
For more than a century, the world has been celebrating a holiday that is not dedicated to any significant event. We are talking about the International Women's Day on March 8, inherited by Russia from the USSR, where this day was celebrated as the Day of International Solidarity of Women in the Struggle for Equality.
Why, then, was the date of March 8 chosen for the struggle for equality? The most popular version says that this is the birthday of Clara Zetkin herself, who first proposed celebrating International Women's Solidarity Day. Another version says that the Jewish woman Clara Zetkin, under the guise of a women's holiday, encrypted the Jewish religious holiday Purim - in honor of another Jewish woman, Esther.
However, Clara Zetkin was a purebred German woman - moreover, of noble blood. (although she sympathized with the Jews all her life - ed.). And she was born on July 5, 1857. However, first things first.
née Eisner
The future fiery German revolutionary was born in the small Saxon town of Wiederau, which stands on the banks of the Wiederbach river, in the family of a village teacher Gottfried Eisner, who came from a poor noble family. But Clara's mother, Josephine Vitale, came from a very prosperous bourgeois family that owned numerous manufactories and factories in Leipzig. True, her father Jean Dominique Vitale, with his violent temper, was not at all like all the other Vitales - he took an active part in the French Revolution of 1789 and in the Napoleonic campaigns. In the same spirit, he raised his daughter Josephine, named after the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, and Josephine, being a staunch supporter of the emancipation of women, tried to raise a revolutionary from Clara, which she successfully succeeded.
Already at a young age, Clara stood out among her peers with her curiosity and tenacious memory: at the age of nine, the girl read all of Goethe and Schiller and recited their poems with pleasure, and at 12 she quoted excerpts from the “History of the French Revolution” by historian Thomas Carlyle.
In 1874, Clara passed the entrance exams to the private gymnasium of the outstanding teacher Augusta Schmidt in Leipzig. It was there that Clara Eisner received her nickname Wild Clara from classmates - in the heat of a dispute about politics, she could easily use her fists.
Nevertheless, Clara passed all the state final exams with excellent marks. Parents did not doubt at all that Clara would have a brilliant career in the teaching field or in some banking office. Or - what the hell is not joking! - perhaps even in the Saxon Landtag, since she talks about politics with such fervor. But Gottfried and Josephine Eisner could not have imagined that Clara, who outwardly resembled an ordinary peasant girl from Wiederau with a flat face and spade hands, would start her own political career.
Zetkin
While still a student in Leipzig, she became close to a circle of revolutionary emigrant students from Russia, among whom was Osip Zetkin, a charismatic and charming Jewish native of Odessa, he was a favorite of all the women of the revolutionary underground, who were ready to listen for hours to his lectures on the victory of Marxism.
And Wild Clara fell in love without memory - unshaven Zetkin with burning eyes reminded her of the romantic heroes of Schiller, about whom she read so much in childhood. Wholly sharing the views of the adored Osip, at the age of 21 she joined the Socialist Workers' Party and became Zetkin's common-law wife, taking his last name.
Clara's unexpected marriage led to a complete break with the family. In addition, after the introduction by Otto von Bismarck of the "Exceptional Law against Socialists" in 1881, Osip Zetkin was arrested and expelled from the country.
Together with him, as the devoted wife of the Decembrist, Klara also left the country. First they went to Zurich, then to Vienna and Rome, where Osip was again threatened with prison. Finally, in 1882, they settled in Paris, where they began to live in a tiny apartment in Montmartre.
In Paris, Clara's first-born son Maxim was born in 1883, and two years later Konstantin was born. They lived hard: Osip published for pennies in left-wing newspapers, Klara gave private lessons and washed clothes from the rich.
Once she even played cards for money - Wild Clara has been an excellent poker player since her studies at the gymnasium. Since in the old days women were not allowed to play with men at the card table, Clara had to change into a man's dress and glue on a fake beard. Nobody noticed the change.
Luxembourg
At the same time, it was in Paris that Clara met Laura Lafargue, the daughter of Karl Marx, and her husband Paul Lafargue, who was one of the leaders of the French labor movement. It was Lafargue who introduced Zetkin to Rosa Luxembourg, her closest friend.
Born Rosalia Luxenburg was born on March 5, 1871 in a family of wealthy Polish Jews from the town of Zamosc, which was within the Russian Empire. The fifth child in the family, Rosalia was the most nondescript. She had a disproportionate figure, small stature, and even lameness due to a congenital dislocation of the hip. But at the same time, Rosalia had a rare charm that affected all men. Bertrand Wolf, an American communist leader, described Rosalia as a petite, pretty woman with large, expressive eyes and a warm, vibrant voice.
Struggling with her complexes, she went into politics - in the party they saw her not as a woman, but as an intelligent and reliable comrade.
In 1890, 19-year-old Rosa, who had already changed her surname to Luxembourg, went to Paris due to police persecution, where she was brought together with Zetkin.
They became friends instantly - two clumsy emancipated women, united moreover by common Jewish ideas.
The Social Democrats sneered maliciously: "In our flimsy party there are only two real peasants - Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxembourg."
emancipation day
It is Zetkin and Luxembourg that we owe the appearance of International Women's Day on March 8th. Back in 1910, at the Second International Conference of Women Socialists in Copenhagen, Zetkin made a proposal to declare the second Sunday of March the Day of International Solidarity of Women in the Struggle for Their Rights. Rosa Luxembourg warmly supported this proposal.
True, it was not immediately possible to decide on the date of the international holiday. Thus, women's organizations in Germany celebrated this date on March 19 - in memory of the victory of the Berlin workers in revolutionary battles at the barricades in 1848. In America, March 8 was declared a holiday - in honor of the strike organized by the textile workers of New York on March 8, 1857. In England - March 9, in honor of the Westmoreland County miners' strike, in which more than 15 thousand people took part.
Only in 1914 International Women's Day began to be celebrated everywhere on March 8 - it was the second Sunday of the month. True, this holiday was not celebrated again during wartime.
Well, after the war, the day of March 8 was legalized by the decision of the 2nd Communist Women's Conference, held in 1921 in Moscow. A special explanation was also issued that March 8 was established in memory of the participation of women in the Petrograd demonstration on February 23 (March 8), 1917 - they say, this frankly far-fetched and hardly noticeable event for contemporaries became a formidable precursor of the February Revolution.
After the Second World War, this holiday began to be celebrated throughout the socialist camp, and since 1975, the UN has assigned the holiday an international status.
divine woman
In 1889, Osip Zetkin died of tuberculosis, and the Exceptional Law was subsequently abolished in Berlin. And she, along with the children and Rosa Luxembourg, went home to Germany. Or rather, to Stuttgart, where at that time a large cell of the Social Democratic Party was formed.
From 1891 to 1917, Clara Zetkin was editor of the proletarian women's magazine Die Gleichheit ("Equality"). Interestingly, the magazine was published at the expense of engineer Robert Bosch, the founder of the electrical engineering concern Robert Bosch GmbH. But in those days, Robert Bosch was just a budding engineer who was developing magneto ignition devices for car engines. He never hid his liberal views and gladly donated part of his income to the revolutionary press.
However, they say that Bosch and Wild Clara were connected by something more than just a commonality of political views. One way or another, but the love affair, if it existed, remained a secret with seven seals - especially after the wife of the engineer Bosch, Anna Kaiser, gave birth to two daughters, Margarita and Paula.
Clara herself at that time was busy with a new novel - in the editorial office she met the 18-year-old artist Georg Friedrich Zundel. At first, Clara simply helped the young man get orders, but then she married George.
Clara's friends dissuaded her from this step, believing that such a misalliance would disgrace Clara and expose her to ridicule. But Clara proved once again that it was not in vain that she received the nickname Wild: she absolutely did not care what others think about this.
For almost two decades, Clara and Georg lived in perfect harmony. Clara's sons grew up, studied to be doctors. The family's income made it possible to purchase a nice house in the suburbs of Stuttgart, a small villa in Switzerland, and even a car, which at that time was the height of fashion and luxury.
It is no coincidence that all the leaders of the socialist movement of that time liked to visit Zetkin Villa. For example, in 1907, at the Stuttgart Congress, Clara met Vladimir Lenin, and he soon became her close friend and guest.
But in 1914 the couple separated. The reason was a different attitude towards the First World War. Clara Zetkin opposed the imperialist war, and Georg Friedrich, in defiance of her, volunteered for the army.
Clara experienced the departure of her husband , and for many years did not give him a formal divorce. Only in 1928, when she was almost 71 years old, did she agree to a divorce, and the artist immediately married his longtime darling Paula Bosch, the daughter of Robert Bosch, with whom, as it turned out, he had been in an unofficial relationship for many years.
Daughter-in-law and mother-in-law
The black cat also ran between Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxembourg. In 1907, Clara learned that 37-year-old Luxembourg had become the mistress of her 22-year-old youngest son Konstantin. And not just a mistress - Konstantin expressed a desire to marry Rosa. Clara Zetkin was very unhappy with this turn of events, she even stopped communicating with her friend.
The romance of Konstantin and Rosa continued until the outbreak of the First World War - Konstantin, following the example of his stepfather George, volunteered for the army and went to the front. He served as a non-commissioned officer in the medical service, fought on the western front, on the Somme, in Verdun and Reims. He was even awarded the Iron Cross of the second degree for bravery.
He did not return to Rosa again - after the war he went to study at the University of Frankfurt. There he learned that in 1919 Rosa Luxemburg was brutally murdered by the police in Berlin during the suppression of a workers' uprising. Rose was beaten to death, and the body was thrown into the Landwehr Canal on the way to prison. The body of Luxembourg was found only after almost five months, and was buried altogether in 2009 - all this time the remains of the revolutionary were kept in the vaults of the pathological anatomical theater as the remains of an "unknown".
The death of Rose for Clara was a terrible blow. She survived her friend for 15 years, but even before her death, she always remembered only her, and her last word was “Rose”.
Last resort
In 1920-1933, throughout the existence of the Weimar Republic, Clara Zetkin was elected to the Reichstag from the Communist Party. For more than 10 years in a row, she was a member of the Central Committee of the KKE, was employed in the Executive Committee of the Comintern, and also headed the International Organization for Assistance to the Fighters of the Revolution, created in 1922. But she spent most of her time in Moscow, where she prepared the program of events for the Comintern.
The last time she came to Germany was in 1932 for the opening of the newly elected Reichstag. At the first meeting, presiding by seniority, she issued an appeal to resist fascism by all means:
Let's form a united front against fascism and its proxies in the government! Organization, a clear awareness of their goals by the working people in the struggle against fascism - this is the immediate necessary prerequisite for a united front in the struggle against crises, imperialist wars and the cause of their occurrence - the capitalist mode of production!
After that, she gave the floor to Hermann Goering, the representative of the faction that received the majority of votes in the recent elections.
After the left-wing parties were banned in Germany, Zetkin left for the Soviet Union forever.
She died on June 20, 1933 in Arkhangelsk near Moscow at the age of 76. The ashes of Zetkin were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.
After the death of his mother, Konstantin fled from the USSR to France, where he worked as a masseur and orderly. After the occupation of France, Zetkin emigrated to the United States, where he worked in several psychiatric clinics, and then went to live in Canada.
March 11th, 2018
On March 8, hundreds of thousands of women celebrate every year in Russia. However, it is not so easy to explain why we celebrate Women's Day on March 8 and in general the history of this holiday. How "prostitutes" in history were replaced by "workers" and what does the Jews have to do with it?
On the eve of the traditional holiday we decided to collect all the stories that somehow explain the origin of this holiday. Some of them may surprise, or even shock, because they do not have that festive mood to which we are accustomed.
And if those women to whom we owe the holiday of March 8 - the suffragettes, were told that in a hundred years women would begin to prepare for this day in beauty salons, and then accept flowers, perfumes and compliments as a gift from men, these ladies would definitely come out from myself. And the reaction of the revolutionary Clara Zetkin, who granted Women's Day the status of an annual and international one, is generally hard to imagine.
History March 8 - version one, official: Day of Solidarity of Working Women
Although this version of the creation of the holiday on March 8 from the times of the USSR was recognized as official (and no other versions were considered), it has several "errors".
So, according to the official version, the holiday is associated with the "march of empty pans", which took place on March 8, 1857 in New York.Back then, the women who worked at textile dyes simply protested poor working conditions and low wages.During the march, they beat these same pots, demanding that they be granted a 10-hour working day instead of a 16-hour one, equal wages with men and suffrage.
The same version also speaks of the famous German communist Clara Zetkin. It is she who is often called the woman who founded the holiday on March 8. In 1910, at a women's forum in Copenhagen, Zetkin called on the world to establish International Women's Day on March 8th. She
meant that on this day women would organize rallies and demonstrations, and thereby draw public attention to their problems.
Here it is also worth recalling the controversial appeal of Zetkin. She was an avid communist, which means she was ready for anything for the sake of her own convictions. In 1920, during the war between Poland and Soviet Russia, Zetkin said the following from the rostrum of the Reichstag.
Not a single wagon with weapons for the Polish troops, with machine tools for military factories built in Poland by the capitalists of the Entente, should cross the German border.
To this end, Zetkin called for the mobilization of all "conscious proletarian women" who should offer their love to any "conscious" worker who refuses to participate in the execution of military orders.
This holiday came to the then Russian Empire through Zetkin's girlfriend, the fiery revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai. The one that conquered the Soviet Union with a "big phrase".
Surrendering to the first man you meet should be as easy as drinking a glass of water.
On March 8, 1917, a women's demonstration took place in Petrograd. While two million soldiers died during the war, women came out to demand "bread and peace." This historic Sunday falls on February 23 according to the Julian calendar, or March 8 according to the Gregorian - the beginning of the Russian revolution.
Four days later, the tsar's false abdication was rigged and the provisional government granted women the right to vote. March 8 became an official holiday in the USSR in 1921.
History March 8- version two: protests of prostitutes, not factory workers
This version of the origin of the holiday is perhaps the most scandalous and bad for everyone representatives of beauty gender , who await International Women 's Day with trepidation .
Detention of suffragettes in Britain
In 1857, in New York, women really protested (as we wrote above), but they were not textile workers, but prostitutes. They demanded to pay salaries to sailors, because they used their services and did not have money to pay.
Even later - March 8, 1894 - Another demonstration of prostitutes took place in Paris. This time they demanded recognition of their rights on an equal footing with those service workers who sew clothes or bake bread, and establish special unions .
Detention of suffragettes
Similar actions took place in 1895 in Chicago, and in 1896 in New York.These protests became the prerequisite for the memorable congress of suffragettes (from the English word suffrage - "suffrage") in 1910, where it was decided to declare March 8 Women's Day and international, as Zetkin suggested.
By the way, Clara Zetkin herself also took part in such actions.In 1910, together with her friend Rosa Luxembourg, she brought prostitutes to the streets of German cities demanding an end to police excesses.But in the Soviet version, "prostitutes" were replaced by "working women."
History of March 8 - version three: honoring the Jewish queen
There is a version that Zetkin was born in the family of a Jewish shoemaker, and therefore she connected March 8 with the Jewish holiday of Purim.
According to legend, the beloved of the Persian king Xerxes, Esther, saved the Jewish people from extermination, using her charms.Xerxes wanted to exterminate all the Jews, but Esther convinced him not only not to kill the Jews, but, on the contrary, to destroy all Jewish enemies, including the Persians themselves.It happened on the 13th day of Arda according to the Jewish calendar (this month falls at the end of February- early March). Honoring Esther, the Jews began to celebrate Purim.The date of the celebration was "floating", but in 1910 it fell on March 8th.
This version looks unlikely, but against the backdrop of fictitious protests of factory workers- not so absurd.
Detention of suffragettes in Germany
Other versions
In addition to the three main ones, there are several less popular, but no less interesting a And sometimes very strange) versions of the origin of the holiday.For example, there is an opinion that once March 8 was considered the professional holiday of Jewish prostitutes, because the first eight of spring was supposedly considered a specific shameful symbolism.Some are convinced that March 8 is Mrs. Zetkin's birthday.Others, either jokingly or seriously, claim that on this day Clara Zetkin (Eisner) became a woman, and then decided to inscribe this intimate date in world history, disguising it as the day of "international solidarity of the female proletariat."
The version about Zetkin's birthday can be easily refuted, because, according to historical documents, she was born on July 5th. And the other two - about the loss of virginity and prostitutes - remain only strange assumptions. The very same holiday on March 8, over the years, more and more acquires similar and unlikely legends.
Caricature of suffragettes in the press
What do we celebrate on March 8?
Speaking dryly, March 8- the usual political "PR campaign" of the Social Democrats.At the beginning of the 20th century, women protested all over Europe.And in order to attract attention, they didn’t even need to show their breasts, as modern activists do. Femen. It was enough just to walk through the streets with posters on which socialist slogans were written.
March 8 was a regular working day for a long time, only on May 8, 1965, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, International Women's Day on March 8 was declared a holiday in the USSR.
Detention of suffragettes
If you say that March 8- this is a communist relic, you can't go wrong.However, one cannot ignore the fact that, on the other hand,- this is a manifestation of the women's movement (the forces behind it, behind feminism, the violation of God's established order, abortion and the destruction of the traditional way of the family).
That is why March 8 has also become a public holiday in Azerbaijan, Angola, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Vietnam, Georgia, North Korea, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, China, Republic of the Congo, Laos, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Uganda.
Detention of suffragettes
Clara Zetkin was an active campaigner for women's rights. Her name is inextricably linked with the celebration of International Women's Day.
One of the most famous activists of the German and international socialist and women's movement - Clara Zetkin (Clara Zetkin) entered the history of the 20th century not only as an active communist, but also as a woman reformer who played an important role in the development of the European movement for women's rights. In Soviet times, the main merit of Zetkin was the establishment, at her suggestion, of International Women's Day.
young talent
Clara Zetkin, nee Eisner, was born in 1857 in the small Saxon town of Wiederau in the family of a rural teacher. Already at a young age, Clara stood out among her peers with her curiosity and tenacious memory: at the age of 9, the girl read all of Goethe and Schiller and recited their poems with pleasure, and at 12 she quoted excerpts from the History of the French Revolution by historian Thomas Carlyle.
While still a student at the Leipzig Pedagogical Gymnasium, a prestigious educational institution where Clara was accepted for free education, she began to attend secret meetings of the Social Democrats, and in 1878 joined the Socialist Workers' Party, later renamed the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). ).
Beginning of party activity and emigration
At the same time, she met her future life partner, the Russian revolutionary emigrant Osip Zetkin, with whom she was soon forced to leave for Zurich, fleeing the intensified persecution of socialists in Germany.
In 1882 Clara moved to Paris
Clara Zetkin
in 1982, the Zetkins moved to Paris, where Osip and Clara continued to engage in party activities. They made a living by translating and publishing in social democratic newspapers, although the pay was meager. At the time of the death of Osip, who died in 1889 from tuberculosis, he and Clara had two sons. Despite the fact that Clara had been signing the surname Zetkin for many years, she never entered into an official marriage with Osip.Fight for women's rights
Living in France, Clara Zetkin actively participated in the preparation and work of the Founding Congress of the 2nd International in Paris in 1889, where she gave a speech on the role of women in the revolutionary struggle. And after the persecution of the Social Democrats was stopped in Germany, Klara returned to her homeland, where, since 1892, in Stuttgart she began to publish the SPD newspaper for women, Equality.
In 1907, Clara Zetkin headed the women's department created under the SPD, where, together with Rosa Luxembourg, she campaigned for the equal rights of women. At the International Conference of Women Socialists in Copenhagen in 1910, at the suggestion of Zetkin, it was decided to celebrate International Women's Day, later timed to coincide with the anniversary of the demonstration of New York textile workers on March 8, 1857.
Activities in the Communist Party and friendship with Lenin
Zetkin had friendly relations with Vladimir Lenin
In 1917, for propaganda against the First World War, the leadership of the SPD removed Zetkin from work in the editorial office of the newspaper Equality. In the same year, she took part in the founding of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), and after the creation of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in December 1918, she actively advocated the entry of working members of the USPD into its ranks.
From 1920 to 1933, Zetkin was constantly elected to the Reichstag from the Communist Party, while simultaneously heading the International Women's Secretariat of the Comintern. In 1920, at the age of 63, Clara Zetkin traveled to the Soviet Union for the first time, where she met Vladimir Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya. In subsequent years, Zetkin often came to Moscow to participate in the congresses of the Comintern. She had friendly relations with Lenin and Krupskaya.
Last resort - Soviet Union
Clara Zetkin, 1933
In July 1932, when, as a result of early elections to the Reichstag, the National Socialists won a majority in the German parliament, Clara Zetkin was in Moscow. As the oldest member of the Reichstag, she had the right to open the first session of the new convocation and, despite feeling unwell, went to Berlin, where she delivered a fiery speech about the danger of Nazism and called for the creation of a united anti-fascist front. After the left-wing parties were banned in Germany with Hitler's rise to power, Zetkin went into her final exile, this time to the Soviet Union.
Clara Zetkin died on June 20, 1933 in the Arkhangelskoye estate near Moscow at the age of 76. The funeral ceremony of the German revolutionary was attended by 600 thousand people. Zetkin's ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.
