國際婦女運動之母——克拉拉·蔡特金 The founder of the international women's day - Clara Zetkin

 國際婦女運動之母——克拉拉·蔡特金

The founder of the international women's day - Clara Zetkin

文 梅夫·麥格拉斯（Maeve McGrath）

譯 月影

校 natsuko

克拉拉·蔡特金（Clara Zetkin , 1857-1933）是廣為人知的國際婦女節的創立者，但她不只是一名女權活動者，同時是一位重要的馬克思主義思想家。嚴格來說，她的目標不僅僅是解放女性，讓她們能同男性一同公平地競爭，同時還致力於解放全體工人于資本主義制度中。

　　直至今日，她的遺產都被清楚地標記在以她名字命名的街道和廣場上。直至1949年，西德的大多數主要城市都有多個以她的名字命名的街道或者廣場，以及多個紀念她的紀念碑。民主德國（東德）也印製了鈔票以示紀念。

　　在世時她的影響力也已經不限於德國。1889年，她任職於第二國際組織委員會並于1907年創立並擔任第二國際第一個婦女部門的總書記。 政治生涯 　　粗略地回顧克拉拉·蔡特金取得的一些成就，我們能清楚無疑地看到她在政治上做出的努力和取得的影響力。她是上個世紀之交最大的社會主義團體——德國社會民主黨（German SPD）的領導人和思想家，也是其組織者和編輯。

　　蔡特金和卓越的羅莎·盧森堡（Rosa Lumexburg）一道屬於德國社會民主黨內部的反對組織「斯巴達克聯盟」（Sparticus）。1917年，她加入了德國獨立社會民主黨（independent SPD）——該黨派批評德國社會民主黨支持第一次世界大戰。

　　之後於1919年，她成為德國共產黨（KPD）的創始人，並被推選為代表德共的德國議會代表。此後在魏瑪共和國存在的幾乎整個時期（1918-1933），她一直在議會中擔任著德共代表。

　　蔡特金參加了第二國際的每一屆代表大會並在大會裡擔任翻譯。1921至1933年，她是第三國際執行委員會委員。1907年，她建立了社會主義婦女國際（Socialist Women’s International），並在斯圖加特組織召開第一次國際社會主義婦女代表會議（International Socialist Women’s Conference）。

　　1910年迎來了她最值得紀念的時刻：在哥本哈根舉行的一次國際婦女代表會議上，她提出了建立國際婦女節的倡議。第二年的三月十九日，超過一百萬人在歐洲參加國際婦女節遊行。

　　她的一生的經歷證明她能夠退一步向他人學習。例如，她注意到美國的戒酒組織製作簡短的小冊子，並鼓勵歐洲的社會主義者學習這樣的做法以使得他們的宣傳更加通達。

　　她熟悉不同國家的社會主義者的組織思想並分析哪一種取得了最好的結果。 革命觀點 　　蔡特金深刻地意識到戰爭帶來的影響因而反對第一次世界大戰。她認為戰爭不僅會對大量民眾帶來毀滅和災難，同時對諸如軍火製造商這樣特定的群體帶來經濟利益。

　　她看見為了給戰爭辯護，民眾的仇恨如何被激發起來。她於1915年在伯恩組織了一次反對戰爭的國際婦女代表會議。她數次因她的反戰立場而被逮捕。

　　歷史學家理查德·埃文斯（Richard Evans）指出：相較于克拉拉·蔡特金而言，其它的女性政治人物，例如亞歷山卓·科倫泰（Alexandra Kollontai）和羅莎·盧森堡獲得了更多的關注。然而蔡特金的思想是科倫泰的女性社會主義思想的基礎，並且實際上也是歐洲社會主義者將社會主義和婦女解放相連起來的方法的基礎。

　　她認識到了資產階級婦女性運動和社會主義女權運動之間的差別。基於恩格斯關於一夫一妻制的枷鎖對女性的壓迫的分析，通過認識到沒有廣泛的工人階級婦女參與群眾運動，就不可能實現從資本主義中的解放，她把恩格斯的分析向前推進了。恩格斯的觀點是劃時代的，而蔡特金把它現代化到她所在的時代。和恩格斯一樣，她也易於浪漫化原始共產主義中的社會關係。

　　她將很多她的思考歸功於她的同志奧古斯特·倍倍爾（August Bebel）和他1879年的一本書《婦女和社會主義》（Die Frau und der Sozialismus），在書中他為女性呼籲平等的權利並強調說只有當一個社會主義社會建立時，真正的權利平等才能得以實現。

　　1896年在哥達召開的社會民主黨大會上，克拉拉·蔡特金發表了一篇演講，在演講中她大膽地斷言：

　　「只有聯合了無產階級婦女，社會主義才能最終勝利。」

　　她解釋說，工人階級的女性不需要和工人階級男性鬥爭；他們共同對抗統治階級的意志，因為兩種性別的工人的勞動力都被剝削著，同時生活在糟糕的環境之下。

　　她指出機器的發明意味著女性能獲得更多的工作崗位。由於這些工作對工人的身體有著很高的體力要求，這些崗位過去僅僅由男性擁有。

　　雖然她沒有反對女性身上的母親角色，但她理想化了這一角色並把社會主義社會中母親的角色描述為家裡的一個體貼的教育者，以及和她丈夫平等的合作者。因為這一獨特的想像，她後來受到了許多的批評，其中不乏不懷好意的批評。

　　在她1899年的手冊《學生和女性》（Der Student und das Weib）中，她為女性呼籲更多的教育機會，包括高等院校這樣級別的教育機會。在書中她再次提到了女性身上的母親角色，認為教育機會將能夠提升一個女性撫養孩子的能力。

　　蔡特金並不同情那些依賴著一個成功的婚姻來支持她們，卻被剝奪了獨立生活權利的中產階級女性。此外，她充分地認識到像女性權利選舉這樣的資產階級的女權運動並不能構成對資本主義系統的真正威脅。

　　她是一個堅定的馬克思主義者，將社會主義置於資產階級女權主義之上；但她同樣也認識到沒有女性參與這場運動，實現那個目標是不可能的

　　雖然她批評社會法西斯主義的史達林理論，然而像很多那個時候的社會主義革命者那樣，克拉拉感受到逐漸興起的史達林主義的影響，她並不反感一個漸漸變得專制極權的蘇聯政權，一個看起來一點都不像她為之奮鬥的那個社會主義，她甚至於1926年在秘密員警頭目菲力克斯·捷爾任斯基（Felix Dsershinsky）去世時對他表示稱讚。 個人生活 　　拋開她對資產階級運動的立場，克拉拉本身的背景卻是一個十足的中產階級。作為一個教師的女兒，她被培養成一個語言老師和家庭女教師。

　　她的母親——約瑟芬·維塔萊（Josephine Vitale），參與了資產階級的女性運動。這讓克拉拉得以接觸一些女權思想家，例如奧古斯特·施密特（Auguste Schmidt）。像她的母親那樣，她得到了良好的教育。她進入了萊比錫著名的馮·斯泰伯學院（Von Steyber Institut）。然而，在1878年，由於她加入了德國社會主義工人党（Sozialistischen Arbeiterpartei） ，她和她的家庭決裂了。

　　德國自1878年開始引入禁止社會主義組織的法律 ，迫使她去往蘇黎世，並在1882年來到巴黎。在巴黎她遇見了猶太裔俄羅斯革命家奧西普·蔡特金（Ossip Zetkin）。他們走到了一起，有了兩個孩子。1889年奧西普去世，她也搬到了斯圖加特。她和小她18歲的藝術家喬治·弗裡德里希·贊德爾（Georg Friedrich Zundel）再婚，不過在1927年他們離婚了。

　　1907年，她遇見了弗拉基米爾·伊裡奇·列寧（Vladimir I. Lenin），並和他開始了一生的友誼。他們的一些辯論被抄錄下來，他們之間親切的口頭辯論也加強了這份友誼。

　　1933年希特勒上臺並攻擊德國共產黨，她被迫流亡於俄羅斯。1933年7月20號在長久的病痛後她與世長辭，享年75歲。

　　從她的著作和演講來看，很顯然她是一個精力充沛的、機智的、堅定的鬥士。她閱讀十分廣泛，常常援引國際文學作品。她向當權者中的一些主要人物發出挑戰，包括一位巴伐利亞的員警總署。她數次被逮捕，短暫入獄，但這些都未能嚇到她。儘管身患重疾，她仍然頑強不屈地工作。她頻繁地提到別人的著作和行動，給人的感覺像是她不需要來自社會的關注。作為一個高超的作者，她給羅莎·盧森堡寫的悼詞是她對她的同志的美麗的感人至深的悼念。

　　克拉拉·蔡特金是一個從未被引誘向改良主義的中心的，堅定的革命家。她是一個不覺疲勞的行動者，以她的作為一個被推舉出來的代表的角色為平臺去警告法西斯主義的危險。她的一些關於社會主義者如何將婦女和婦女運動相聯繫的觀點對當今時代仍然具有價值。

Clara Zetkin: Revolutionary

written by Maeve McGrath July 27, 2020

Clara Zetkin (1857 – 1933) is known to many as the founder of international women’s day, but she was not just a women’s rights activist. Clara was also an important Marxist thinker and as such, her aim was not simply to free women in order for them to compete as equals alongside men, but to free all workers from the capitalist system. Her legacy is clearly marked to this day in the streets and squares named after her. By 1949, most major cities in west Germany had streets or squares named after her, and multiple monuments in her honour. She was also memorialised on a GDR banknote. While she lived, her influence reached beyond Germany, too: in 1889, she served on the organising committee of the Second International and in 1907 she founded and became Secretary-General of its first women’s section.

Political life

The political diligence and influence of Clara Zetkin is unquestionable – a cursory glance at some of her achievements will make this clear. She was a leading figure and thinker in the most powerful socialist group at the turn of the last century – the German SPD – and she also worked as an organiser and editor. Alongside the eminent Rosa Lumexburg, Clara belonged to the Sparticus opposition group within the SPD, and in 1917 she joined the USPD – the independent SPD – a party which was critical of the SPD’s support of the first World War. She would later become a founding member of the German Communist Party (KPD) in 1919, and was elected to represent the party at the Reichstag, remaining in position for almost the entire existence of the Weimar Republic (1918 – 1933). Clara attended every congress of the Second International and worked as a translator at each one. From 1921 – 1933 she sat on the executive committee of the Third International. She founded the Socialist Women’s International, and organised the first International Socialist Women’s Conference in Stuttgart in 1907. 1910 brought the moment she is best remembered for: at an International Women’s Conference in Copenhagen she mooted the idea of having an International Women’s Day. The next year on March 19th over a million people in Europe participated in IWD demonstrations. In her lifetime, she proved capable of taking a step back and learning from others. For instance, she noted that the American sobriety groups were producing shorter pamphlets and she encouraged European socialists to learn from this and make their propaganda more accessible. She became au fait with the organising methods of socialists in different countries and analysed which achieved the best results.

Revolutionary outlook

Clara’s opposition to World War I was based on a sharp understanding of the implications of war; not just the devastation it causes to masses of people but also the economic benefits for certain sectors, such as weapons manufacturers. She saw how hatred was whipped up in a populace to justify the war, and she organised an international women’s conference in opposition, in Bern in 1915. She was arrested several times for her anti-war activism. Historian Richard Evans noted that more focus is given to other female political figures such as Alexandra Kollontai or Rosa Luxemburg, than Clara Zetkin, yet her ideology was the basis of Kollontai’s approach to feminist socialism – and indeed of the european socialist approach to the connection between socialism and women’s liberation. She recognised a distinction between bourgeois women’s movements and socialist feminist activism. She built on Engels’ analysis of the subjugation of women through the yoke of monogamous marriage but progressed this by understanding that there could be no liberation from capitalism without the involvement of working class women in mass movements. Engels’ focus was on prehistoric times whereas Zetkin modernised the analysis into her own time. Like Engels, she was also prone to romanticising social relations of primitive communism. She credits much of her thinking to her comrade August Bebel and his 1879 book “Die Frau und der Sozialismus” (Women and Socialism) where he calls for equal rights for women and maintains that there can be no real equality until a socialist society is achieved. At the 1896 Gotha congress of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Clara Zetkin delivered a speech that boldly asserted: ‘Only in conjunction with the Proletarian Woman will socialism be victorious’. She explained that working class women did not need to fight against working class men; they shared a struggle against the ideas of the ruling class because both genders were exploited for their labour and expected to live in appalling conditions. She noted that the invention of machines meant that more occupations were made available to women, ones that previously had been the sole domain of men due to the gruelling demands they placed on the workers’ body. Though she did not reject the maternal role placed on women, but idealised it and described the woman’s role in a socialist society as that of a caring educator in the home, and equal partner to her husband. For this fanciful image she later received much criticism, and not without good cause. In her 1899 pamphlet “Der Student und das Weib” (The Student and the Woman), she called for greater educational opportunities for women, including university level access. Here again she brings in a maternal role for women, arguing that educational opportunities would improve a woman’s ability to raise children. Zetkin did sympathise with middle class women, who depended on successful marriage ties to support themselves and were denied the right to earn their own living. Despite this, she was savvy enough to know that the bourgeois movement for women’s rights such as the suffragette movement would not represent a real threat to the capitalist system. She was a committed Marxist, and placed socialism in prime position over bourgeois feminism; but recognised that it was impossible to achieve that goal without women in the movement. Although critical of the stalinist theory of Social Fascism, Clara, like many revolutionary socialist of the time, felt the pull of the rise of Stalism, and was far too uncritical of a regime which became increasingly totalitarian, and which looked nothing like the kind of socialism she had fought for, for so long, even praising the head of the secret police – Felix Dsershinsky – on his death in 1926.

Personal life

Her stance towards bourgeois movements aside, Clara’s own background was very middle class. The daughter of a teacher, she trained to be a language teacher and governess. Her mother – Josephine Vitale – was involved in the bourgeois women’s movement. This brought Clara into contact with women’s rights thinkers such as Auguste Schmidt. Like her mother, she enjoyed the advantage of a good education. She attended the prestigious Von Steyber Institut in Leipzig. In 1878, however, her joining of the Sozialistischen Arbeiterpartei (Socialist Workers’ Party) led to a break with her family. Laws banning socialist organising began to be introduced to Germany from 1878 and this forced her to move to Zurich and then Paris in 1882. In Paris she met the Russian-Jewish revolutionary Ossip Zetkin, with whom she would have two children which she moved to Stuttgart when he died in 1889. She married again – Georg Friedrich Zundel, an artist 18 years her junior – but they divorced in 1927. In 1907 she met and began a lifelong friendship with Vladimir I. Lenin. Some of their debates are transcribed and the affable nature of their verbal sparring affirms the strength of this friendship. The rise of Hitler and the attacks on the KPD meant that in 1933 she had to go into exile in Russia. It was here she died after a long illness on June 20th 1933, aged 75. From her writings and speeches it is clear she was a vibrant, witty and indomitable fighter. Well read, she often referenced international works of literature. She called out leading figures in the establishment, including a Bavarian minister of police. Her multiple arrests and brief incarceration did not deter her and she worked doggedly despite ill health. She frequently mentioned the writings and actions of others – which gives the impression of a person who had no need for limelight. A skilled writer, her obituary to Rosa Luxemburg is a beautiful and touching tribute to her comrade. Clara Zetkin was a committed revolutionary who was never lured towards the centre by the appeal of reformism. She was a tireless activist and used her role as an elected representative as a platform to warn of the dangers of fascism. Some of her ideas on how socialists should relate to women workers and women’s movements are still relevant to this day.