International Working Women ’ s Day
The gist of Bolshevism and the Russian October Revolution is getting into politics the very people who were most oppressed tinder capitalism . They were downtrodden , cheated and robbed by the capitalists , both under the monarchy and in the bourgeois-democratic republics . So long as the land and the factories were privately owned this oppression and deceit and the plunder of the people ’ s labour by the capitalists were inevitable .
The essence of Bolshevism and the Soviet power is to expose the falsehood and mummery of bourgeois democracy , to abolish the private ownership of land and the factories and concentrate all state power in the hands of the working and exploited masses . They , these masses , get hold of politics , that is , of the business of building the new society . This is no easy task : the masses are downtrodden and oppressed by capitalism , but there is no other way — and there can be no other way — out of the wage-slavery and bondage of capitalism .
But you cannot draw the masses into politics without drawing in the women as well . For under capitalism the female half of the human race is doubly oppressed . The working woman and the peasant woman are oppressed by capital , but over and above that , even in the most democratic of the bourgeois republics , they remain , firstly , deprived of some rights because the law does not give them equality with men ; and secondly — and this is the main thing — they remain in household bondage ”, they continue to be “ household slaves ”, for they are overburdened with the drudgery of the most squalid , backbreaking and stultifying toil in the kitchen and the family household . March - 2024
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 , Bolshevik revolution is doing . Over here , in Soviet Russia , no trace is left of any inequality between men and women under the law . The Soviet power has eliminated all there was of the especially disgusting , base and hypocritical inequality in the laws on
V . I . LENIN
marriage and the family and inequality in respect of children .
This is only the first step in the liberation of woman . But none of the bourgeois republics , including the most democratic , has dared to take oven this first step . The reason is awe of “ sacrosanct private property .
The second and most important step is the abolition of the private ownership of land and the factories . This and this alone opens up the way towards a complete and actual emancipation of woman , her liberation from “ household bondage ” through transition from petty individual housekeeping to largescale socialised domestic services .
This transition is a difficult one , because it involves the remoulding of the most deep-rooted , inveterate , hidebound and rigid “ order ” ( indecency and barbarity would be nearer the truth ). But the transition has been started , the thing has been set in motion , we have taken the new path .
And so on this international working women ’ s day countless meetings of working women in all countries of the world will send greetings to Soviet Russia , which has been the first to tackle this unparalleled and incredibly hard but great task , a task that is universally great and truly liberatory . ‘[ here will be bracing calls not to lose heart in face of the fierce and frequently savage bourgeois reaction . The “ freer ” or “ more democratic ” a bourgeois country is , the wilder the rampage of its gang of capitalists against the workers ’ revolution , an example of this being the democratic republic of the United Slates of North America . But the mass of workers have already awakened . The dormant , somnolent and inert masses in America , Europe and even in backward Asia were finally roused by the imperialist war .
The ice has been broken in every corner of the world .
Nothing can stop the tide of the peoples ’ liberation from the imperialist yoke and the liberation of working men and women from the yoke of capital . This cause is being carried forward by tens and hundreds of millions of working men and women in town and countryside . That is why this cause of labour ’ s freedom from the yoke , of capital will triumph all over the world .
Pravda No . 51 ., March 4 , 1921 Source : Lenin ’ s Collected Works , 1st English Edition , Progress Publishers , Moscow , 1965 , Volume 32 , pages 161-163 �
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