Background

Ethnicity: Clara Zetkin was of German and French ancestry of her father's and her mother's sides respectively.

Clara Zetkin was born on July 5, 1857, in Wiederau, near Leipzig, Germany. At her birth, she was given the name of Clara Eissner. She was the eldest of the three children of Gottfried Eissner, a schoolteacher and church organist, and Josephine Vitale Eissner, Gottfried's second wife, who was the widow of a local doctor. Josephine Eissner was active in women's education societies and a believer in equal rights and economic power for women. Her work was inspired by feminist organizations, including the German Women's Association and the Federation of German Women's Associations, led by women's rights activists such as Auguste Schmidt and Luise Otto. When Zetkin was 15, her father retired and the family moved to Leipzig.

Education

Clara Zetkin was trained as a teacher at Leipzig Teachers’ College for Women. During her studies, she became involved with the women and labor movements. Her activities during these years included reading socialist newspapers and books and attending meetings of the Leipzig Women's Education Society and the National Association of German Women. These areas of feminist and socialist thought became the focus of her lifelong political activities.

Career

In 1878, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck banned all SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, whish is Social Democratic Party of Germany) activity in an attempt to curb the party’s power in the government. Following this act, Zetkin and other leading members of the SPD had to leave Germany to avoid persecution and prison. Zetkin migrated first to Zurich, and then to Paris. While in exile, she met her partner Ossip Zetkin. Though they never married, she took his name, and together they had two sons. When the Anti-Socialist Law was finally lifted in 1890 Zetkin returned to Germany to live in Stuttgart. She joined the newly founded SPD.

Zetkin became the leading female theorist of the socialist emancipation theory and as such helped to formulate the core ideas of socialist feminism. An important medium for her to spread socialist ideas in circles of the working class was the socialist women’s journal of the SPD, Die Gleichheit (Equality), which Zetkin edited until 1917. Here, and elsewhere she argued that women could only become emancipated if they worked like men and earn their own income, which would make them independent from men and integrated them in society and politics. They should receive the same pay and privileges as men in the workplace. For her wage inequality hurt women and men. She strongly made these arguments in an article in Die Gleichheit published in December 1893, in which she addressed this issue. The article served as a call to action. It framed women’s economic equality and social emancipation as a matter of class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, only after the socialist revolution women could really become equal as women and as workers. Zetkin argued that wage inequality would hurt both, female workers, because the poor wages made it incredibly difficult for women to afford adequate living conditions, and male workers because of the competition of cheap female labor. As a result, Zetkin called equal wages and stronger attempts pf the SPD and the trade unions to organize women in the labor movement. Only when women became equal to men at work and, by extension, in the home could they begin working towards class reforms. In addition to promoting socialist feminism, Zetkin provided some much-needed leadership and structure in the German socialist women’s movement.

During the First World War, Zetkin, along with Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) and her friend Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), belonged to the small opposition in the SPD that rejected the party’s policy of Burgfrieden (a truce with the government, promising to refrain from any strikes during the war). Among other anti-war activities, Zetkin organized an International Socialist Women’s Conference against the war in Bern, in neutral Switzerland, from March 25-28, 1915, to which all other participants had to travel illegally. Despite the danger of imprisonment, 25 women from, Britain, France Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, and Switzerland participated in this first international women’s conference for peace, which ended with a joint resolution. Because of her anti-war opinions, Zetkin was arrested several times during the war, and in 1916 taken into "protective custody" (from which she was later released on account of illness).

In 1916 Zetkin was one of the co-founders of the Spartacist League (Spartakusbund), which published illegal, anti-war pamphlets pseudonymously signed "Spartacus" (after the slave-liberating gladiator who had opposed the Romans). The Spartacus League vehemently rejected the SPD’s war policy and supported the growing number of riots and strikes against the war all over Germany. In April 1917 Zetkin joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) which had split off from the SPD, in protest at its pro-war stance. In January 1919, after the German Revolution in November 1918, she became a co-founder of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), for which she was elected in the Reichstag, the parliament of the newly founded Weimar Republic from 1920 to 1933.

Until 1924, Zetkin was a member of the KPD’s central office and from 1927 to 1929 she was a member of the party’s central committee. She was also a member of the executive committee of the Communist International (Comintern) from 1921 to 1933. In 1925, she was elected president of the German left-wing solidarity organization Rote Hilfe (Red Help). In August 1932, as the chairwoman of the Reichstag by seniority, she was entitled to give the opening address, and used it to call for workers to unite in the struggle against fascism. After Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party took over power in January 1933, the KPD was banned. Zetkin went into exile to the Soviet Union. She died there, near Moscow, in 1933, aged nearly 76.

Although she passed 85 years ago, Clara Zetkin remains an invaluable fixture in modern feminist movements. Even now, women are still fighting for equal pay in the workplace, and figures such as Zetkin remind modern women that cooperation is of utmost importance and that perseverance is critical to making progress in the movement for women’s equality. Zetkin’s most lasting legacy, however, is her reputation as an organizer and effective leader. It’s no secret that modern politics and social movements are deeply affected by partisanship, so Zetkin is most relevant in that she is an example of what can be achieved with organization and cooperation.

Achievements

• Clara Zetkin remains an invaluable fixture in modern feminist movements. Even now, women are still fighting for equal pay in the workplace, and figures such as Zetkin remind modern women that cooperation is of utmost importance and that perseverance is critical to making progress in the movement for women’s equality. Zetkin’s most lasting legacy, however, is her reputation as an organizer and effective leader. It’s no secret that modern politics and social movements are deeply affected by partisanship, so Zetkin is most relevant in that she is an example of what can be achieved with organization and cooperation.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Fighting Fascism: How to Struggle and How to Win

    (Clara Zetkin, an organizer of the First International Wom...)

    1923
  • Social-Democracy and Woman Suffrage

    (In 1906, Clara Zetkin presented a tremendously impactful ...)

    1906
  • Lenin On The Woman Question 1929

Religion

As a Marxist, Zetkin was committed to atheism. Nevertheless, Lutheran ethics in which she was raised strongly influenced her views.

Politics

Clara Zetkin joined in 1878 the Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands). She was a cofounder in 1916 of the radical Spartacus League (Spartakusbund), and joined the new Communist Party of Germany in 1919, becoming a member of the party’s central committee and serving in the Reichstag (federal lower house) from 1920.

Views

It was in Leipzig that Zetkin gave her first public speech on the liberation of women and all workers through a class revolution. She believed that once class equality was established in a Marxist society, the economic and social oppression of women would naturally come to an end. Because of this line of thought, for many years she fought against special provisions and laws to protect women in the workplace; her thought was that becoming satisfied with such measures would detract from the focus on a total restructuring of the class system.

Quotations: "For reforms ameliorate the situation of the working class, they lighten the weight of the chains labour is burdened with by capitalism, but they are not sufficient to crush capitalism and to emancipate the workers from their tyranny."

"What made women's labour particularly attractive to the capitalists was not only its lower price but also the greater submissiveness of women. The capitalists speculate on the two following factors: the female worker must be paid as poorly as possible and the competition of female labour must be employed to lower the wages of male workers as much as possible. In the same manner the capitalists use child labour to depress women's wages and the work of machines to depress all human labour."

"When a battle for suffrage is conducted, it should only be conducted according to socialist principles, and therefore with the demand of universal suffrage for women and men."

"The capitalists speculate on the two following factors: the female worker must be paid as poorly as possible and the competition of female labour must be employed to lower the wages of male workers as much as possible."

"The socialist parties of all countries are duty bound to fight energetically for the implementation of universal women's suffrage which is to be vigorously advocated both by agitation and by parliamentary means. When a battle for suffrage is conducted, it should only be conducted according to socialist principles, and therefore with the demand of universal suffrage for women and men."

"Women's propaganda must touch upon all those questions which are of great importance to the general proletarian movement. The main task is, indeed, to awaken the women's class consciousness and to incorporate them into the class struggle."

"We would, however, perform an injustice to the bourgeois women's rights movement if we would regard it as solely motivated by economics. No, this movement also contains a more profound spiritual and moral aspect."

"What made women's labour particularly attractive to the capitalists was not only its lower price but also the greater submissiveness of women."

"The most disastrous phenomenon of the current situation is the factor that imperialism is employing for its own ends all the powers of the proletariat, all of its institutions and weapons, which its fighting vanguard has created for its war of liberation."

"Bourgeois society is not fundamentally opposed to the bourgeois women's movement, which is proven by the fact that in various states reforms of private and public laws concerning women have been initiated."

"Given the fact that many thousands of female workers are active in history, it is vital for the trade unions to incorporate them into their movement."

"What practical conclusions may we now draw for our propaganda work among women? The task of this Party Congress must not be to issue detailed practical suggestions, but to draw up general directions for the proletarian women's movement."

"Social Democratic and trade union organs have approved of the illegal invasion of Belgium, of the massacre of suspected guerrillas, as well as their wives and children, as well as the destruction of their homes in various towns and districts."

Membership

Clara Zetkin was a member of the German political aid organization Rote Hilfe.

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  Rote Hilfe , Germany

Personality

Clara's return to feminist issues also led her to reestablish ties with her family, who came to her assistance after Zetkin contracted tuberculosis due to her impoverished conditions in Paris. After her convalescence, Zetkin returned to Paris to nurse Ossip, who was suffering from spinal tuberculosis. He never recovered and died in January of 1889. Zetkin overcame her grief at her partner's death by immersing herself in her political work. Her preoccupation with the socialist cause was so great, in fact, that rearing her two sons constituted her only personal considerations for many years.

Physical Characteristics: Zetkin contracted tuberculosis due to her impoverished conditions in Paris. She suffered from poor health in her later years, and she died outside of Moscow in the Soviet Union on June 20, 1933.

Interests

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

• Politicians

  Vladimir Lenin

• Writers

  George Sand, Louise Otto-Peters, Auguste Schmidt

Connections

Clara Zetkin lived together with Ossip Zetkin and eventually had two sons, Maxim and Konstantine, but were never officially married because Zetkin did not want to give up her German citizenship. She did, however, adopt his surname, and remained Ossip's companion until the end of his life. After the death of her husband, she would later be married to the painter Georg Friedrich Zundel, a man 18 years her junior. The marriage, which began in 1899, began to disintegrate during World War I and ended in divorce in 1927, primarily due to Zetkin's overwhelming commitment to her work.

Father:

Gottfried Eissner

Mother:

Josephine Vitale

husband:

Georg Friedrich Zundel

Son:

Konstantin Zetkin

Son:

Maxim Zetkin

Partner:

Ossip Zetkin

colleague:

Rosa Luxemburg

Acquaintance:

Vladimir Lenin

References

• Women and Class: Toward a Socialist Feminism
  2011
• Clara Zetkin
  2003
• Socialist Women: European Socialist Feminism in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
  1978