The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 8, 1934, Page 4

Page Four DAIGY WUKKER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 1984 Hail International Women’s Day! Revolutionary Greetings “After the Revolution In Czarist Russia We Became Human Beings” against running, then catching and fining a few every day. The least objection made on apy occasion to a foreman was called “back talk” and heavily fined. worker, 8 ih the dining ttee rooms, technical study of rooms rubber manu- facture, lecture and study rooms for | lasses in political education, all of | occupied has 280 good two-room- | ymns which are inside the factory \tself.| and-kitchen apartments. They are|ali of them marching toward the} Kastigova’s blunt nose and shrewd eyes were before us everywhere, in red-printed reproductions of a cray- | | Now all this is changed com- pletely. Kastigova’s wage is now amounting to about 6 per cent. “We Became Human Beings” We saw 8 short distince from the factory new apartment houses for married workers. The one already om portrait, on a poster which testi- fied that she had been awarded the order of the “Red Banner of Labor” & om International Women’s Day, March 8 of last year. 34 Years in the Factory The poster is signed by the Com- munist Party Committee, the Fac- tory Committee, the Plant Admin- | Heroines of the Paris | | By SASHA SMALL | Down through the pages of his- | tory marches a heroic procession. 150 rubles, with deductions for rent Its ranks are filled with women. | |Peasani women, working women. teachers housewives, mothers and young girls; some of them at. the heads of divisions, most of them scattered through the marching col- e by side with the men— |future which their actions, their sac- |rifices, their struggles had helped to |prepare—a future where there will |be no more hunger or misery or op- pression. The procession stretches centuries |in the past. Its end is lost in the dim- | ness of time. In 1381—English peas- | ants and artisans marching to Lon- don to make demands upon the king and parliament for better condi- Fi | tions. In 1500 German peasants fight- | [The Great Traditions Commune; Revolutionar y Leaders Clara Zetkin ,Liebknecht and Luxemburg; who awful consequences of bloody op- lived to see the triumphant estab-| pression, terror, hunger and war, of Revolutionary Heroines in Working Class History and Rosa Luxemburg; | Brave Austrian Women Who Died On Vienna Barricades; Women Fighters for Freedom In Czarist Russia; Women Shock Brigaders of Socialist Construction in the U.S.S.R. ing it once and for all.” ly storming capitalism and destroy- Ushment of a workers’ republic on| one-sixth of the earth’s surface.| | With her last breath almost, she} sent out a call to the women of the | world to join in the struggle against fascism and war: | “Toiling women, remember that | fascism is depriving you of the} rights that you attained with bitter | struggle. Fascism is depriving you} of your work and independence. . . .| I call upon you, together with the| will be conquered and destroyed.” For years, Clara Zetkin was & leader in the fight against Imperial- ist War. Her fiery words again and again called upon the workers to rise against their real enemy, the capitalist class, Rosa Luxemburg Then there was Rosa Li of the 1914-1918 massacre, the life and blood of the people has not yet been avenged. The wounds wrought by death and mutilation have not who since the age of 16 joined the cause of the revolutionary working class. She served many years in | jail but her spirit was never crushed “The enormous number of victims |¥Y torture or persecution. Together with Karl Liebknecht she fought to win the toiling masses of Germany under the slogan—“Down with Im- perialiss War—Turn Imperialist International Red Aid, to fulfill your | yet healed in the hearts of our loved solemn duty to international soli- | ones and our friends, Whole gen- darity. The sacrifice demanded of erations are groaning under the you is very little in comparison with | heavy burdens effected by the World the life and blood that is being sac-|War. Will not the sufferers, the rificed every day by the revolution-| victims, finally realize their histor- ary workers in their heroic struggle | ical duty? Will they not raise their against fascism. None of us should | strong revolutionary 'fist and put an rest in peace until fascism, with its|end to the manslaughter by brave- | War man workers. Austrian Heroines In recent years the scene becomes i} into Civil War directed against your own government.” And together with Karl Liebknecht she was murdered by the Social Democratic betrayers of the Ger- istration, and by the Women's Or- ganizer of the Party Committee. It states that she has worked con- tinuously in the Red Triangle for 31 years, that she is among those who took part in the strikes of women workers on the occasion of the mass poisoning hundreds in this factory in 1914, that she is one of. the best women shock brigaders, that she is among the best in pub- ie activities, she has been four ha times awarded prizes for good work in. the factory, and applied for member munist Par’ that she has p in the Com- poster states that at present she is a member of | the Central Committee of the Rub- ber and Chemical Workers Union. We foun it afterwards that she accomplished all this although only partially literate; her only chance to study was, of course, since the Revolution. One of the High Privates But you must not think of her as @ great political leader. She would be the first to disavow any such status. She is not even a Com- munist Party member, yet. She is just a fine f ordinary worker, one of the “high privates” of the army of Soc: construction. Kastigova h of a talker. She answers questio: She sted work in this same factory in 02 when she was 14 years old. As an apprentice she got 35 kopeks a day, or about 17 cents U. 8. money. Then she became a piece worker able to earn about 70 kopeks. She and an- other worker paid together six rubles a month for a tiny, dingy room to live in, and a rouble is 100 kopeks. They brought their lunch to the factory, when they had money enough left to buy lunch, but they had no place to sit down and eat it. Now It’s Different The bosses here in the old days kept everyone terrorized, just as they do in America now, with con- stant watching. With the system of fines for the least infraction of rules. Piece half-starved and eager for & few more kopeks, tried to run across the factory yard to their jobs. The boss was willing for most of them to get there quickly, but could make a few more indirect wage cuts by issuing an order “We Have Not Rosa Luxemburg murdered in | trayers of the German Revolution. building another just like it, and |intend to build more until the fac- tory force is accomodated. The Red Triangle has an elabo- rate network of nurseries, schools, laundries, club houses, a recrea- tion park with admission free to Red Triangle workers, a huge stadi- |um. seating 35,000 for football and | track events, with more fields being | built, dining rooms in the factory where nourishing meals, although somewhat plain, are served for low | cost, etc. | “After the revolution we became | human beings,” says Kastigova. She jis married and has four children, |all workers. The youngest was | brought up through the system of | factory nurseries, vacation nurse- | Ties and schools, which left Kasti- gova time for her work. | LETTERS FROM | WORKINGCLASS WOMEN | Eleven Cemts an Hour Editor: I Went to See about a Job and the Lady made me a n offer of 11 cents an hour. There have been many other offers of that type made to me. EB. KIRKLAND. + Spe Dear Bditor: I once went to work for ® cer- tain Mrs. C. in Barnes Avenue in the Bronx and I noticed the clock on the corner was nine o’clock. Mrs. C’s was just five past nine whom I entered the house. When I was through Mrs. C’s clock said one o'clock and the store’s three o‘clock observation time. Mrs, © set her clock two hours back. Girls take your clocks with youl HF. Yet Learned to Carry on Bolshevik Work Among Proletarian Women” From the Report of Comrade Kuusinen at the 13th Plenum of the E.C.C.I. UT «# persistent struggle against opportunist passivity in its ranks, not a single Communist Party will achieve success in winning mass influence in the factories, in the trade unions, in the Tural districts, and in the army. It must be said that in the majority of cases we still work badly in these spheres in all capitalist countries; we have not yet sufficiently learned the methods of Bolshevik mass ‘We can and will learn all this—that is why we are revolutionaries and Communists. I will not here deal in detail with all the tasks that are enumerated in our draft theses; no doubt other comrades, par- ticularly members of the delegation of the C.P.S.U., Comrades Man- ullsky, Piatnitsky, and Knorin, will speak on these questions. I ask you to regard their speeches as parts of our collectve report. The only . other point I want to mention is the necessity for intensifying our activities in two important branches of revolutionary mass work. We have not yet learned to carry on Bolshevik work among pro- The first task of all the Sections of the Comintern to get rid once and for all of the underestimation of of the idea that this work is not part of general is the duty of every Communist Party to convene delegate meetings in various forms, open or disguised, in the political situation, and to use these meetings as training @ body of active non-Party working women to with the masses, to train the active women Party serve as substitute for men for Party work in war time, Yecruit as many women as possible for the Party in order to | and the number of women the [vi should As arrests, trials, attacks A tions, i To is the toiling women with anti- with the masses of the soldiers through the medium of their should be organized under our leader- must be concentrated on work in F; the divergence in fhe numbers of women employed in in- members of the Communist Party. struggle against the fascist terror, the mobilization of the proceed around all concrete manifestations of this ter- on workers, etc. In order to draw of the working women and women tollers generally into \ti-fascist movement, use must be made of conferences, con- demonstrations, hunger marches, etc. and this movement consolidated by drawing women into mass, Red Defense or- ip anti-fascist fighting units, Ambulance Corps, Red carry on broad anti-imperialist work one of the immediate and urgent tasks. propaganda, we must work to organize 1919 by the Social-Democrat be- | ing against the robber barons and | the feudal lords for their miserable | patches of land; 1789—French work- Jers and peasants roaring through |the streets of Paris, through the jlanes of villages, demanding the | head of the tyrant king, whose lux- |urious court of pampered, useless |nobles was draining them of the little they were able to scrape from | the land. | The Paris Commune As the procession comes closer to us the figures become clearer and more distinct, 1871—Paris Com- mune. Paris on the barricades de- | fending the first workers’ govern- ment in the world against the forces of reaction. From the moment when the Commune was born on the ram- parts of Montmarte when the re- actionary government attempted to steal the workers cannon, paid for by themselves, the women played a heroic and a decisive role, A Pari- sian newspaper of those days de- scribes March 18th: “A crowd of women clamored in the square .They caught hold of the horses’ bridles, surrounded the soldiers and said to them: ‘Do you wish to serve the enemies of the people? You yourselves are the sons of the people. Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?’” Outstanding among the women of the Paris Commune was Louise Michel, a young school teacher, long active in the ranks of the workers. With the proclamation of the Com- mune her activity doubled. She per- sonifies the spirit of those 76 days of the Commune. She helped or- ganize womens’ clubs in the churches which were declared pub- lic property. She was on the Cen- tral Committee of the Union of Women which took up the problems of arranging free schools and nur- series where mothers could leave their children when they went to/| work. When there seemed nothing left to do but to die fighting on the | barricades, Louise Michel dressed | herself in the uniform of the Na-| tional Guard and fought until the last barricade was taken. After seven months of imprisonment in| the filth and horror of the jail at Satory, filled with arrested Commu- nards, where every thought was| punctuated by bullets shooting down into graves, they themselves were forced to dig, the workers who had dared to establish a government of their own, she defended herself be- fore @ court-martial in a speech that echoed through the press of the Micerg world. “I am told that I am guilty of having participated in the Com- mune. Of course I am....I de- mand of you the field of Satory, where my brothers have already . (This information was gathered GERMANY ers’ “cross-examination.” worked out especially for women. forced to stand with heavy books they faint. Reichstag. Sentenced in Darmstadt labor for distributing forbidden lea: Of the 76 concentration camps for women. POLAND Regina Kaplan, sentenced to 1 woman and have been earning my was not allowed to finish. FINLAND for 14 days. SPAIN ‘Three hundred women political Granada court-martial. ITALY prisonment. BULGARIA Maria Belava and Zwetana Chri: Schumen. The sentence was “In c sentence was only to whitewash CUBA and tobacco workers. CHINA the Kuomintang. But hundreds of JAPAN even tried. CLARA ZETKIN AND KRUPSKAYA One of the last pictures taken of Clara Zetkin. She is shown with Krapskays, the widow of Comrade Lenin. Women Fighters Who Have Become Fascist Victims Mrs. Thomas, Berlin.—Fifty years old, former deputy of the Berlin municipelity, now in the Spandau hospital as a result of storm troop- Anni Kreuzer, Hamburg—Former editor of the Social Democratic “Voikezeitung.” Subjected to s favorite form of torture the Nazis have Francisca Kesse, Frankfort—Former Communist Deputy in the Crete Croh, member of the German Young Communist League and a deputy of the Saxon Landstag, was brutally tortured to death, Erna Knith, Chemnitz.—Taken into the prison yards every day for nine days and put against the wall to be shot. On the ninth day of this torture murdered in her cell by storm troopers. Nine hundred women among the Polish political prisoners. court martial last September. Organized White Russian peasants to resist the robbery of the government. demanded a death sentence for her she made the following speech: “During the last 17 days we have been facing death. I am a working am proud of this and I believe the time will come when. . One hundred and twenty-three women political prisoners partici- pated in the hunger strike in Tavastkaas prison. The strike lasted August, 1933, a peasant women in Almeria was sentenced to 33 years hard labor for “insulting and resisting” the authorities. Falgencia Garcis was sentenced to 25 years of hard labor by a Viana Iside, sentenced to eight years’ hard labor, died in prison after serving five years of her term. Ravana Camilla, a member of the Italian Communist Party since its foundation, was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. She is now suffering from tuberculosis in its last stages. Rosetti Georgina, a textile worker, is now serving 18 years’ im- college, sentenced to death together with 14 revolutionary soldiers in were murdered by the police even before the trial 60k place and the the murderers. Many thousands of women participated in the great strike strug- gles last August. Many were arrested, the majority oi them textile Information from China is very limited. All newspapers printing facts about political prisoners are immediately banned by orders from dents have been executed, murdered, shot down in the streets, On Oct. 30, 1938, alone 107 women workers in Tokio were arrested and imprisoned on the suspicion that “they participated in Commu- nist activity.” They wére kept in prison for months before they were |so crowded with strife and struggle that the figures do not stand out so clearly and sharply. Only last Austrian women stood upon the barricades and sacrificed their lives in the fight against fascism and for the right to live. Unnamed heroines, whose identity may never in spite of the betrayal of their Social Demorcatic leadership to lay down their lives that the bloody reign of fascism might be held off. Soviet Women In the Soviet Union, millions of women heroes of labor, are reap- ing the -harvest sown by their sis- ters in Tsarist days. Vera Figner, Sophie Perovskaya, Inessa Armandt, Helena Stassove, Concordia Samol- \lava, Krupskaya, the list could go |}on and on of women heroines, some of whom gave their lives in the struggle and others who lived to see the day of victory—all of them spending their lives in tireless devo- tion to the revolutionary goal. Thousands suffered exile in Siberia, many died upon the gallows, many more were sent into exile, but noth- ing stopped those who followed from carrying on the tradition, “Every Cook Must Learn” ‘Today women in the Soviet Union are enjoying the things that women workers through the centuries hoped and died for. Many of them are heads of factories and collective farms, They occupy important posts in the Soviet Government. One of the outstanding diplomats of the Soviet Government is a woman—Comrade Kollontai. And the millions of Soviet women freed from the slavery of household care are free to work in the factories and farms, assured that their children are cared for and will grow up to be healthy, happy, useful citizens of the workers’ state, Comrade Len- in’s slogan is becoming a reality: Every cook is learning to run the government. ‘The procession marches on. In capitalist countries the struggle has not yet reached its climax. In America, China, Germany, Japan, the women are taking their places in the ranks of fighters. More of them must be drawn in. To fill the places of those who have fallen. To carry on the heroic traditions of those who came before us. by the International Red Aid.) For hours at a time women are in their outstretched hands, until it to three and a half years hard filets. in Germany three are especially Dear Editor: I worked for woman on s 30 days basis beginning Oct. 19. I quit on Nov. 12. She payed me for 24 days’ work. I demanded 25 days’ pay. She refused paying for % days. She finally called up the Police Department asked to send a police to take me out of her house. Thé police did not come but T had to leave getting my full be ee 8 years’ hard labor by the Kobrin After the public prosecutor living since I was 13 years old. I .” She prisoners in Spanish jails. three of her brood ~ isteva, two students in the teachers’ onumacia.” That means that they Chinese girl Communists and stu- month hundreds and hundreds of become known, but who were ready SOVIET UNION There 's no unemployment for men or women. There is # shortage of labor. Wages 6,000,000 women are One-third of the whole class are women. Wages for women are the same as for men. Wages inoreased between 28 per cent and 50 per cent in the last three years. Discrimination There is no discrimination be- cause of sex or race, or inequality between men and women. In the All-Russian Central Executive Com- working market martyr, hanged in 1886. mittee, which is the supreme gov- erning organ, there are 185 women. Trade Unions ‘Trade union reports show a rapid rise in the number of women mem- bers, 2,850,000 women were mem- bers in 1929. At present there are 5,000,000 women union members. Social Insurance ‘The Soviet insurance system cares for all workers in all cases where they have lost their earnings. Insurance for pregnancy and child-birth covers eight weeks be- fore and eight weeks after confine- ment. Insurance payment is equal to the woman worker's full wages beginning with the first day of the sixteen week period. Maternity benefits include a lump sum for the layette, free medical attention, and additional sums for feeding the child for nine months after its birth. Full birth control information given and birth control clinics in all sections of the Union. Condition of Children Nurseries and schools are pro- vided for all children. All children from 7 to 17 are required to attend school. Free medical, dental, gymnastic and vocational guidance service is given to all children of ali the workers. Free playgrounds, summer camps, Lenin Taught Us the particularly those laws which, on child’s support. where women are not placed in a ther militarization in all countries, proletarians—not in order to fire trary to the ‘right and dignity of ‘They are like little worms which, necessary task of forming a staff working women.” Contrast Conditions of Women in United States With Women in USSR Lucy Parsons, wife of the Hay- | *Most Advanced Countries Use Weaker Condition of Women To Rob Them of Equal Rights’ Work Among Women As a Major Political Task “WOT a stone was left unturned by the S¢-iet Republic in the laws which had placed women in a subordinate position. I have in mind of women, put them in an unequal and often humiliating position, namely, the Jaws dealing with divorce and childref born out of wed= lock, of the woman's right of claim on the father of the child for the We can say that precisely in this fleld of bourgeois legislation, even the most advanced countries utilized the weaker condition of woman to deprive her of equal rights and to humiliate her, and it is precisely in this field that the Soviet power has left no stone un- turned with regard to the old, unjust laws which are unbearable #@ the representatives of the toiling masses. And now we can say with pride and without any exaggeration that outside of Soviet Russia there is not a single country in the world where women enjoy full rights, ticularly felt in everyday and family life. This has been one of our firs; and most important tasks. . Militarization is now penetrating rialism is in an embittered struggle of the big powers for the division and redivision of the world. It must, therefore, inevitably lead to tur~ countries. What will the proletarian women do against this? Will they only curse every war, and everything pertaining to war, only de- mand disarmament? Never will women of an oppressed class recon- cile themselves to such a shameful role. They will say to their sons: “You will soon grow big. They will put a gun in your hand. Take it and study thoroughly the art of war. This knowledge is essential for other countries, as is being done in the present war and as the traitors to socialism will counsel you to do—but in order to fight against the bourgeoisie of their own country, in order to put an end to exploita- tion, poverty and wars, not by means of pious wishes but by means of victory over the bourgeoisie and by disarming it.” “So few men—even among the proletariat—realize how much effort and trouble they could save women, even quite do away with, if they. were to lend a hand in ‘woman’s work.’ But no, that is cone comfort, The home life of the woman is a daily sacrifice to a thou- sand unimportant trivialities. The old master right of the man still lives in secret. His slave takes her revenge, also secretly. The back~ wardness of women, their lack of understanding for the revolutionary ideals of the man decrease his joy and determination in fighting. corrode. I know the life of the worker, and not only from books. Our Communist work among the women, our political work, embraces & great deal of educational work among men. We must root out the old ‘master’ idea to its last and smallest root, in the Party and among the masses. That is one of our political tasks, just as is the urgently trained in theory and practice, to carry on Party activity among f UNITED STATES Unemployment |men'in the U, 8. Two end oe |men in the U. 3. half million women 23,000,000 unpaid housewives. Wages 22 per cent of all wage are girls and women over ten old. Total number of Negro wage earning women is close to Many unemployed women young girls are placed in “oppare tunity homes” to do housework tm exchange for room and board given positions as servants without pay. Discrimination Men given higher wages than wo~ | men. Industrial codes of the N.R.A. |give official sanction for unequal pay. One-quarter of the codes fix a lower wage scale for women than for men, In New York State wo- men’s wages in manufacturing were only 54 per cent of men’s in 1932. Negro women’s wages are 30 per cent lower than for white women. ‘There is also discrimination against foreign born and single women. Trade Unions Small percentage of women of ganized. Women’s Trade Union League appendix of the A. F. of L. makes no effort to organize women, Unionization among women grow~ ling since N.R.A., especially in the | Needle Trades; now a membership | of 200,000 or 5 per cent of the total. Social Insurance ‘There is no Social Insurance for | women and children. 16,000 mothers die annually dur- jing childbirth; 67 per cent of these deaths are preventible. These are working class mothers. United States, richest capitalist country, has highest maternity death rate in the world. 65 out of every 1,000 women die during child~ birth. No Federal maternity appropriay tion for the provision of medical care for women has been made; ex~ cept the Sheppart-Towner Mater~ nity Act, which was done away with as a patriotic act of economy, by Congress. Birth control information is still denied to millions of working women. Unemployment and Social Relief More than 100,000 women are wandering without homes or shel- ter, except what they can knock together out of boards, boxes oF old tin cans. Even pregnant women are among those “living” in shantye towns, now known #8 Rooseveltw burgs. Condition of Children Schools are closing by the thou+ sands, Tens of thousands of children have no piace to go other than the because the capitalists | | winter sports, recreational al and libraries are at the service all children. Necessity of Constant the ground of the weaker position humiliating position which is par- ‘the whole of social life, Impe+ including the neutralized and small on their brothers, the workers of a man, They want their peace and unseen, slowly but surely, rot and of men and women comrades, well —LENIN. dy J