The Proletarian Woman and the Capitalist Regime

The criminal imperialist war between capitalist states and the new living conditions that have resulted from it have exacerbated to the extreme, for the vast majority of women, the social contradictions and the evils that are the inevitable consequence of capitalism and that will only disappear along with it. And this applies not only to the belligerent states but also to neutral countries, which have been more or less dragged into the whirlwind of the world war, feeling its influence.

The enormous and ever-growing disparity between the price of basic necessities and the means of subsistence of hundreds of millions of women makes their hardships, their deprivations, and their suffering as workers, housewives, and mothers unbearable. The housing crisis has reached the proportions of a true scourge. The health of women deteriorates day by day due to insufficient nutrition and excessive work in both industry and the home. The number of women capable of giving birth to normally developed children is continuously decreasing, while infant mortality during the breastfeeding period is rising at an alarming rate. Illness and general weakness are the inevitable consequences of inadequate nutrition and the deplorable living conditions to which millions of poor children are condemned, forming the misery of countless mothers.

A specific circumstance worsens the suffering of women in all countries where capitalism still reigns. During the war, women’s professional activity expanded considerably. In the belligerent states, in particular, the slogan was: “Forward, women! Women to the liberal professions!” As soon as the war trumpets sounded, the prejudices against “the weak, backward, inferior sex” magically disappeared. Driven by necessity and by the abused, deceitful speeches about the sacred duty of national defense, women left their trades en masse for industry, agriculture, commerce, and transport, greatly benefiting the insatiable capitalists. Women's participation in the workforce penetrated irresistibly into all municipal and state administrations and public services.

But now that the capitalist economy, mortally wounded by the world war, is definitively collapsing—now that capitalism, though still holding power, proves incapable of raising production to meet the material needs of the working masses, and economic disorganization and employer sabotage have triggered an unprecedented crisis, with strikes as a direct consequence—now women are the first and most numerous victims of this catastrophic situation. Both capitalists and public services, as well as various administrations, fear strikes by men far more than those by women; the reason being that the majority of women are not yet politically organized. Moreover, an unemployed woman, according to prevailing opinion, can, as a last resort, sell her body.

In all countries where the proletariat has not yet taken power, one constantly hears this cry: “Women, leave industry! Return to your homes!” This appeal also echoes in trade unions, obstructing the struggle for wage equality between the sexes and reinforcing old reactionary and petty-bourgeois conceptions of the “true, natural function of women.” Alongside the spread of strikes and the dire poverty that results for so many women, there is a resurgence of prostitution in all its forms, from marriages of convenience to open, official prostitution.

The increasingly pronounced tendency to exclude women from social activity directly contradicts the growing need of the vast majority of women to earn an independent income and dedicate themselves to public service. The world war has taken millions of lives, turned millions into invalids or sick people who must be fed and cared for; in turn, the disorganization of the capitalist economy now prevents millions of men from supporting their families through their professional work as they once did. This trend, therefore, is in flagrant contradiction with the interests of the majority of society’s members.

Only by employing the abilities and labor of women in all areas of human activity could society repair the devastating destruction of both material and spiritual wealth caused by the war and develop resources and civilization in proportion to its needs. The general tendency to exclude women from social production stems from the capitalists’ insatiable thirst for profit and their desire to increase their power. This demonstrates that the capitalist economy and the bourgeois regime are incompatible with the vital interests of the vast majority of women, as well as society as a whole.

The present miserable condition of women is the inevitable outcome of the capitalist system, which is inherently predatory and exploitative. The war has only exacerbated the vices of this system to the extreme, making women its countless victims. And this is not a temporary state of affairs that peace will resolve. Humanity, as long as capitalism exists, will always be exposed to new predatory wars—wars whose threat is already beginning to materialize.

It is proletarian women who suffer the most cruelly from the defects of the current social organization. As members of the exploited class and as part of a sex that is denied equal rights with men, they are the greatest victims of the capitalist system. But their suffering is only one consequence of the overall condition of the oppressed and exploited proletariat in all countries where capital still rules. The reforms introduced into the bourgeois system to combat the poverty caused by the war do nothing to change this situation. Only the abolition of this system will bring an end to its horrors.

Only the revolutionary struggle of the exploited and dispossessed—men and women of every country—only the revolutionary action of the proletariat will lead to the overthrow of the social order. Only the world revolution, as the supreme judge, can liquidate the legacy of the imperialist war: poverty, intellectual and moral decay, and the suffering caused by the total bankruptcy of the capitalist economy.

From the preamble to the Theses adopted at the International Congress of Communist Women.
CLARA ZETKIN