It has been more than a hundred years since thousands of women workers held strikes across the USA under the leadership of the Socialist Party (28th February, 1909). The women demanded universal suffrage and protested the inhuman working conditions in factories. This exclusion from voting was despite the fact that women made up a considerable chunk of factory workers and were the principal force in running households by giving unpaid labour.
Inspired by these demonstrations, in 1910 a proposal was put forward in the Second International Conference of Working Women to celebrate a specific day every year as ‘Women’s Day’ on an international scale. This was unanimously agreed upon by representatives from all nations. The primary demand of the time was ‘widening the franchise and extending the vote to women’. In the years preceding the imperialist war (WWI), the sky-rocketing prices of essential goods compelled even the most docile housewives to pour out onto the streets occasionally. Of course all these economic demands could lead to fruition only if these were translated into political action. Hence, the International Working Women’s day (IWWD) ‘was to be a day of international solidarity in the fight for common objectives and a day for reviewing the organized strength of working women under the banner of socialism’.
At this conference it was decided that 19th March, 1911 would be the date for the first IWWD. The date was proposed by the German comrades as it was an important day in the history of proletarian uprisings against the king of Prussia. Preparations for the first IWWD started two months in advance with numerous articles on the necessity of involvement of women in political struggles being published. Word of mouth campaigns by the working class organisations also served in preparing for 19th March. The success of the first IWWD exceeded all expectations as thousands of women poured out onto the streets in the industrial centres as well as smaller towns. In the US, the last Sunday of the month of February was chosen by the American Socialist party to celebrate IWWD. In 1913, the IWWD was shifted to 8th of March- a date that is observed even today albeit stripped of all revolutionary fervour.
1917 was a turning point in the history of the international communist movement as well as the history of the IWWD. Hunger, cold, and the imperialist war drove the Russian masses to a breaking point. On 8th of March (23rd February as per Julian calendar) thousands of women took to the streets in the Russian industrial centres under Bolshevik leadership. The SPARK of the first socialist revolution in the world was lit on that day by the women of Russia. This marked the beginning of the February revolution that culminated into the October revolution in a few months. The first proletarian state in the world was established. Women for the first time broke free of the double shackles of wage slavery and household bondage. IWWD observation in Russia took a whole new meaning as it went beyond the demand of universal suffrage, succeeding in capturing political power for the working women.
In 1921, comrade Lenin wrote, ‘The Soviet power has eliminated all there was of the especially disgusting, base and hypocritical inequality in the laws on marriage and the family and inequality in respect of children.’ This was but the first step as ‘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 large-scale socialised domestic services.’ This painstaking transition was realised to a major extent over the years under the leadership of Stalin and other Bolsheviks. Post the new democratic revolution under the leadership of comrade Mao, China too showed the path for the emancipation of women in the semi-feudal, semi-colonial nations.
Today, the battle against capitalism, patriarchy, and feudalism continues but without the example or support of a socialist base. With the passage of time, society has been made to forget the revolutionary roots of IWWD as it has been transformed into a generic ‘International Women’s Day’ by the UN. In this neoliberal paradigm, it has been reduced to a day for discounts on jewellery, spa treatment etc.
Coming to the Indian context, the women, particularly women from marginalised communities are fighting a David and Goliath battle against communalism, casteism, feudal oppression, and imperialism in various forms. In such a situation it becomes imperative to uphold the radical roots of this day and strive to build a united front against all these existing evils and strive towards “…peoples’ liberation from the imperialist yoke and the liberation of working men and women from the yoke of capital”.
