The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 20, 1926, Page 11

“Every one who knows anything about his tory, also knows that great socia) upheavals are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress can be accurately measured by the social attitude of the fair sex (the ugly i included).” ‘ Karl Marx / (From a letter to Kugelmann, December 12, 1868.) By L. 8. SOSNOWSKY — ‘ bas Woman in Soviet is, the new Russian woman, waiting for her Nek- fassov to sing about her. Called to Life by Revolution. And how many of these Agapkinas has the Bol- shevik Revolution called into life! How many Agapkinas has been brought up by our own women’s section? Abroad, they will not understand, nor even believe, that the peasantess Agapkina, cast away in a dark, distant village, is corresponding with one of the eections of the “lrerrible”’ Central Committee of the i When 1: think about Anna Awapkina and her cul Cc. P. R-~with the women’s section, 1s receiving tural achievement, I recall everything I once read i about the “To-the-People” movement of the aristo- i cratic intellectuals of | the seventies. They took j refuge im peasant costumes; they went timidly to the people, knowing neither its language nor: the customs and manners of village life upon which they wished to exert a decisive influence. And the people repelled them, : The ignominious end of several old Narodniki. also ' occurs to me:. Tschaikovskys, Breschko-Breschkow- skajas, helper’s+helpers of European Capital, lackies ists and participants in the White movement. From the “To-the-People” to-tha “To-Parisand-Prague”’— what a frightful road of life! - | of the stock exchange, ideologists of the white-guard- ° And the unavoidable —By Fred Ellis and—the death of superfluous people abroad. Super- fluous at home, superfluous abroad. 4 A new intelligentsia has arisen, a. new going “to the-People,” a new cultural movement. A former ‘ conductress, a Bolshevik peasantess, a co-worker of the women’s section is its bearer. She is a propa- gandist of Communism, educator in the Children’s Home, dramatic writer, editor and author of fairy tales and stories for the youth; she is an instructor in vegetable gardening and.in children’s homes, she is the organizer of the struggle of the Russia of | thatched roofs, shé is a lyrical poetess. There she IN MEMORIAM—EUGENE VICTOR DEBS By Henry George Weiss. Our warrior is sleeping, his eagle head is low, ‘ His brave. heart, is pulseless, his voice is silent now,. Lang, had he, wakeful, thundered at the Now hia id Foutinds peace on his brow. nee comrades, great was his . Great was his striving thra all the Jong years, Mankind is is better because of his Pay him the tribute of sorrow and : ees eetve gr ap deplete ih ope Reshing tc Wihéey, that we may rear ft, SRE ees ae OTe Oe Owe. advice, and instructions from tt and is reporting to it concerning: her small but important work. And the women’s section does well to cultivate such connections. For such as Agapkina is worth more than twenty travelled urban women propa- gandists who flash up over the village like a meteor. The Agapkinas are the best and most powerful yeast for the village. Some Quiet: Others Otherwise. But there is another type of Bolshevik peasantess fm the villages. If Anna Agapkina inclines towards quiet, intense cultural work, others carry on in the political eauldron of party work. The woman of ‘whom I want to tell now requested me not to publish .@ry poems.’ “Hunger drove her to the Capital, her name, and hence, in contradiction to Agapkina, I here call her—let us say, Kulikowa. I came to know her under the following. circum- stances: At an agricultural exhibition, debates on new methods of agronomy took place under my chairmanship. Luminaries of agricultural science spoke before a thousand-headed peasant audience. But unfortunately these luminaries do not know how to speak to the masses. Their voices are more suit- able for academic disputes. In addition, some of these luminaries tended to portray the future eco- nomic development of the country im extremely gloomy colors. Made Things Snappy. ° The meeting passed off gloomily. Then came the turn of the peasantess Kulikowa, and I gave her the floor. A young woman with a peasant-kercbief on her head stepped upon the platform. And the first few sentences; which. she .wttered caused the | masa of héarers to prick: up»their ears; woke them from” the deep sleep of ‘boredome. The passionate, up right speech of a person who has brought along with her from a remote jittle village her great longing after the new, her entire hate of the old, her entire fanatical faith in the creative power of the Revo- lution, immediately set the entire peasant audience afire. Her speech was interrupted constantly by thundering applause which enhanced the pathos of the woman even more, She‘ lashed the intellectuals of little faith who did not know the village of today, who had been asleep during its awakening end measure the present trend of development with the usual pre-revolutionary standard. The speech made the greatest impression upon ail of us, The simple peasant woman taught the pessi- mistic scholars such a thorough lesson that the lat- ter were embarrassed for an answer. Came From Poor Family. Some time later, I received a letter from Kulikowa which, to be sure, was not intended for publication, but which, with changing of the name and omission of a few passages, may be reproduced here. Kulikowa comes from a very poor peasant family. She has not even attended grammar school. ‘She learned reading by herself. One day she was seized with a passionate desire to write revolution- For several years she worked in Petersburg factories. ‘Her husband was a*worker too. I 1917 she joined the Communist Party: -In 1921 starvation drove her back to the village again: "One does not dare retall‘how one bore this star- vation with three smal) children.” She. goes to a di8trict city: . “Here 1 became a “Inember of the bureau for the organization, ‘of the petty-bourgeois women, then , instructor tor the nourishment of children in the, eommittee of provisions in which a stubborn struggle with the professionals was fought out, who misusing their position, were exploiting the public nourish- ment of children for, their.own advantage; it went so far that they built themselves two-storied houses, “In the year 1920, I was elected at the district soviet conference to the district executive, then to the board of tha committee of provisions, and a month later—as an executive member of the district co-operative, where 1 worked for two years.” Became Responsible Secretary. In 1922, Kulikowa was given leave by the party _@ommittee to return to her native village, to her peasant household. Thera she became responsible eecrotary of the sectjon group of the ©. P. R., which really embraces not one but three sections, . Altogether 1,439 people participated of whom Russia By L. S. Sosnowsky Altogether there were thirty members of the ( R. and seventy members of the Y¥, G. L. From January to August, to be sure, the general activity of the local group stopped, but still a little was done. Comrade Kulikowa did the following in eight months: “Section meetings took place: bi. seven closed, eight open, “four women’s meetings, one agricultural lee ture, one anti-religious lecture, four mass Meetings, 320 were women, not including the mass meetings in which about a thousand people participated, among whom 40 per cent were women. In addition, three agricultural conferences took place with 545 part cipants, Arranged Five Meetings. “In another. section, where there are no party nuclei, I arranged five meetings in which 400 peo ple participated, half of whom were women. “Further; I participated in an education tour in remote districts where I held a mass meeting and lectures on the subject: “Women and the Soviet Power,’ . “This, briefly stated, ig my lamentable activity impartially portrayed.” What, now, does the section secretary of the party group, Comrade Kulikowa, do besides her gather- ings, lectures and meetings? “Of the more than thirty members of the C. P. R. and seventy of the Y. C. L., several come daily as if to a friend and get advice; peasants and peasant women too come with the most diverse concerns. Work on the Plenum. “Besides, the secretarial work must be done and fndeed, monthly reports to the government commit- tee of the party, to the women’s section and to the section of special application. A copy of all records goes. to the district committee.and government com- mittee. Then there comes the work on the plenum and in the district and section commissions. The remote sections must be visited. One must prepare ° for the reports in the party and non-party meetings. “And finally, one must take care of her farm and a family of seven, four of whom are children—four future communards—to whom? under the circum- ,Stances, I cannot give a desirable education. 7 “And above all, much energy is consumed by the labor on the farm.” She often thinks of giving up the farm. But aside from the necessity of nourishing her family, there is also the following consideration to be taken into account: “I must be able to prove that I, as a peasant woman, am able to perform something useful on my own land in an agricultural respect, and thereby give the others an example. The Revolutionary Surge. “But | do not feel myself so much a peasant as rather a revolutionary worker who lives hundreds of kilometers away from me in the cities, in those cities in which the surge of the revolution has not yet come to rest. “With such emotions, it is hard to live in a re mote, gloomy village of a petty bourgeois and in- dividualistic peasant province; where the revolution. ary storm which could refresh one’s enervated brain does not penetrate.” That is the true, great heroic deed of the Russian woman That is more than accompanying one’s husband to Siberia on post horses to forego for a time balls and aristecratic society. Kulikowa longs for education. At least within.the limits of the intermediary school. She would _like to life once more in a workers’ Section for a time; breathe the air of the proletarian struggle. But her duty compels her to remain at her post, to hold up right the banner: of the proletarian dictetorship in , & peasant nest. Family, household, women’s — section, party, de- mands of the rapidly changing life, and\a weak woman, a Russian peasant woman Who hag’ not even attended school, bears om her shoulders this unheard of burden--the burden of building up the new state, of uprooting the old barbaric, Asiatic Russia, . Baptised in Factories, It would be impossible to understand how such women as Kulikowa and Agapkina could arise in « villagé, if one condition were forgotten: both were baptized in St, Petersburg, both had been in fac tories, bo‘h had received the proletarian polish and tempering which cannot be softened by the individu alistic property-psychology ofthe Village. These are veritable heroines of the great strug gle for the new future. How many of these there are—we don't know, but all worfien’s sections are full of them. A new type of Russian woman {& being forged. It is no longer that Nekrassovian “Severely-tried mother ; Of the all-suffering Russian people. , * +