Translated by a contributor for Tjen Folket Media
8th of February, 2020
By a commentator for Tjen Folket Media
Tjen Folket Media is happy to publish the following statement about 8th of March, that has been sent to us, and we unite with the political direction it gives. We will participate in the campaign for the Working Women’s Day of Struggle from the 8th of February till the 8th of March. We especially want to put emphasis on female revolutionary leaders as an example and inspiration for revolutionaries.
Read more about female communist leaders here:
Heder og ære til Dagmar Eilerth
Heder og ære til Rosa Luxemburg
Heder og ære til Esther Bergerud
Heder og ære til Nadezjda Krupskaja
Heder og ære til kamerat Norah
Heder og ære til Aleksandra Kollontaj
We recommend the following classic texts on Marxism and the Women’s Struggle:
Philosophical trends in the Feminist movement by Anuradha Ghandy (Avanti), 2006
The Woman Question: selected writings from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin [the Norwegian version of this work also includes writings from Chairman Mao, we could not find an english version that included selections from his work]
Marxism, Mariátegui and the Women’s Movement by the Communist Party of Peru, 1975.
(TFM does not necessarily support the opinions held by the external websites linked to).
We also recommend to read more on this question in the following texts:
Why socialist Revolution is a prerequisite for women’s emancipation (2019)
Women at the Highest Levels (2019)
Class Position Against Prostitution (2018)
A Class based Feminism? (2017)
Knus norsk utbytting av kvinner – kvinnefrigjøring krever revolusjon (2017)
Å krige for kapitalen er ikke kvinnekamp (2015)
Kvinnefrigjøring krever revolusjon – knus kapitalismen! (2011)
All activists should read the following statement and spread it among revolutionaries:
Forwards for the day of struggle 8th of March!
1. By the Organisational Committee for a Red 8th of March 2020. We encourage all the readers of Tjen Folket Media, all revolutionary activists and all supporters of the revolutionary movement to actively participate on the 8th of March as a proletarian day of struggle. We encourage all revolutionaries to raise the red banner for the revolutionary women’s struggle in the month ahead of 8th of March.
2. On the 8th of March we encourage all those who can to join and participate in Kampkomiteens (The Struggle Committee’s) sections during the march. On the 1st of May they formed anti-imperialist and anti-fascist sections in Kristiansand, Trondheim, Bergen and Oslo. Pay attention to Kampkomiteens webpage for information about their activities.
3. Before the 8th of March we encourage all red activist groups and individual activists to hang up the wallpapers that were created in 2019 to honour female communist leaders. Tjen Folket Media has published texts about 10 female communist leaders from different countries and epochs. They are with us communists in our struggle, for as long as we carry their practical contributions and their thoughts further as an example to follow and source of knowledge. These deceased comrades also gives us the important perspective that the revolutionary movement must nurture and iron women as communist leaders. We want to in this campaign to put emphasis on Clara Zetkin, Alexandra Kollontaj, Esther Bergrud, Jiang Qing and Comrade Norah.
4. We also encourage to hold meetings and actions under the three following slogans: “Crush the Oppression of Women!” , “For a Class Line in the Women’s Movement” and “Women’s Struggle for Communism”.
5. Why crush the oppression of women? We put emphasis on the oppression of women because this chapter is not yet finished. It arose alongside private property and the classes, and has today been interwoven with the capitalist imperialism. Women are systematically exposed to male domination and violence. The oppression of women shows itself economically, socially, culturally and politically. It is seen in both unequal wages and in beauty ideals and myths about a “fragile femininity”. The oppression of women exists, and nothing reactionary falls on its own. The oppression of women must be struggled against and crushed if we want to get rid of it.
6. Why a class line in the Women’s Movement? The Communist Party of Peru and their founder José Carlos Mariátegui affirmed that since women are divided among the classes, there also exists a political division in the Women’s Movement. There will exist a bourgeois and reactionary line, a petty bourgeois line and a revolutionary proletarian line. Where the bourgeoisie or the petty bourgeoisie are dominant, their thoughts are dominant, their ideology and their causes. Thus we get bourgeois Women’s Struggle for female fighter pilots in the wars of the imperialists and we get petty bourgeois Women’s Struggle for tax cut to those with maids and radicalist splits and sectarianism. The red Women’s Struggle is a proletarian women’s struggle. It is to develop the women’s struggle among the deepest and broadest masses of women, for equality, against violence on women, for higher wages and principally for revolution and political power to the proletariat.
7. Why women’s struggle for communism? Womens historical defeat, as Friedrich Engels phrased it, was part of and a result of the emergence of private property and class division. The division of labour that existed in the primitive communist collective was replaced by a patriarchal alienating division of labour, where women become man’s property. The modern oppression of women is interwoven with imperialism. Capital is mainly collected from men. Among the deepest and broadest masses of peasants and proletarians are women overrepresented. The capitalists sow disputes among the working people based on gender and that wages for women are held lower. Capitalists earns money on the beauty industry and on sexualised violence against women in the form of porn and prostitution. Only revolution can abolish capitalism and thus facilitate for a class less society without private property and the oppression of women. The Women’s Struggle must continue throughout the revolution and socialism until the communist, where the alienating division of labour and classes are gone forever.
8. After the 8th of March we encourage red study groups and activist groups to organise studies in Marxism and the Woman Question. Especially the questions we have put emphasis on, along with understanding were the oppression of women has its origin and what historic development it has gone through. Comrades should study “Marxism, Mariátegui and the Women’s, Movement” from the Communist Party of Peru, “Philosophical trends in the Feminist Movement” and “Marxism and The Women’s Question” , selected writings by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao on the woman question.
9. We also encourage to join the international 8 of March campaign initiated by Maoist Parties and Organisations in Europe. A joint poster and flyer will be made. We support initiatives like this and encourage all activists to study the flyer from 2019 and this year, and to spread these together with the international poster.
Forwards for a Red Women’s Struggle and the Day of Struggle 8th of March!
Kjære leser!
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