has startled the left and the Campaign Nuclear leaders. In the breadth of support and militancy it has rekindled the fire of the early actions women's movement.
The women Greenham have that they are the most militant fighters unilateralism, being willing to go to prison for a cause they consider to be just.
Their actions boosted the confidence of the movement, making easier to argue for a mass action orientation in the labour movement and pushed forward growth and development Socialist Challenge 4 March 1983 mulated theoretically and activated politically. The war policy brought them into open conflict with the party.
Werner Thonnessen, The Emancipation of Women, p78)
1. the present disaster (the First World War) will, in the course of years, decades and centuries, emit a sanguinary radiation, in the light of which future generations will view their own fate, just as Europe sensed the radiation of the great French revolution and of the Napoleonic wars ...
Yet how small were those events ... in comparison with what we are performing or experiencing now, and especially what we are heading for.
Trotsky, The Psychological Puzzles of War, September 1915.
women's movement. for the stakes Millions of modern liberation at any shown for. VALERIE that, in have to it WHEN England declared Toria the that swept through These deputies other.
formal of a mass autonomous In the struggle against the imperialist war drive today women know that are high. people in Europe and America now realise that a nuclear war their would be more horrible and more terrifying than previous threat to world peace we have experienced this century.
COULTAS takes a look at the struggles of women in the First World War to show be the run, jobs. only those women who take a clear stand against capitalist war will be able within consistently fight for the cause of women.
August 1914 war on the Wal.
eaders of the Second Internationa crumbled before the wave of jingoism Europe. They voted for capitalist parties in government at that time.
Out window went the watchwords and symbols that the International had been committed to at the Congress held in Stuttgart in 1907.
mandated the parliamentary to vote down war credits and, urging the working class of all countries to unite, said that it was a to shoot each Come ol WULACIN An irreconcilable attitude to the class struggle had long given way in practice to peaceful bargaining and parliamentary reformism.
Now the world was at war even reference to such aims was dropped as the mass workers parties tripped over themselves in urging the working classes to go and die for the Such was the context for women's movement in Europe to respond to World War I.
The formal commitment socialism, and the practical adaptation to capitalism, is always strikingly evident in the field of women's rights.
The majority of leaders of the Se cond International, in parallel with overall attitude the struggle, were quite willing to commit themselves to women's liberation on But when it came to confronting the male chauvinism of movement, such as male workers' tear that women would take their obs, they backed down Lasalle took this view to its mos extreme point when he argued tha vomen should stay at home allowed to compete with workers particularly for skilled It was in arguing against such that a powerful prolelallal women's movement had been built up As e Tentio Democracy. Their journal, Zetkin and was selling 110,000 copies Gleichheit Wal edited by in 1912 just before the outbreak of At the 1907 Socialist Women's - conference also held in Stuttgart, bureau had established lead the work the to class socialist women throughout the Interlaund Die Gleichhet Werman simocial Democracy but throughout the and not whole. male And perhaps because of the disenchantment that women like Zetkin had experienced with the majority of the German women's issues the leading women in the German Party were some of the key left-wing figures in building up Die the minority opposition in the InterClara national imperialist war.
In the case of Rosa Luxemburg it was because of the diffidence shown towards a woner been position as editor of paper, Die Arbeiterzeitung in 1898. Germat the led women had Clara Party over against the support for the discipline. by Social being. the psychological of the Leipzig 'Decades of consistent agitatior by Clara Zetkin in Die Gleichheit an at women's conferences meant that partly latent, partly acute dissatisfaction felt by many women already been formulater theoretically and activated politically. The war policy brought them into (Werner Thonnessen, The Emancipa- conflict policy.' tion of Women).
Right up until issue number 16 Die Gleichheit was to emphasise women's desire for peace despite the re quirements of the censor and party It reported peace demonstrations •Democratic women pointing out that women had to "bear the burdens wives, mothers and sisters of soldiers. as housewives facing the difficulties
ship of the paper and the 18th issue bore a new sub-title: 'Magazine for wives and Christabel Pankhurst pose it to Die Gleichheit.
It sided with the majority in the party and it was left free from the cenTradition Two & The Brittania, Christobel's new journal, harangued the cabinet for not persuing a hard enough line against the Germans. All campaign-