Clara Zetkin: Selected Writings

Clara Zetkin: Selected Writings Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist theorist, activist, and fighter for women's rights. In 1910, she organized the first International Women's Day. "Clara Zetkin's arguments in support of women workers contain a logic which can be effectively employed today in defense of stronger affirmative action programs, not only for women but for the racially and nationally oppressed as well?[her] analysis of the relationship between the woman suffrage campaign and the struggles of working women?is significant not only because of its important historical value, but also?with respect to the class nature of such contemporary women's struggles as the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States." -From the foreword by Angela Y.Davis "In January, 1915, the British journal Labour Women wrote of Clara Zetkin: 'She is Socialist in her very fibre, and she is a fighter ready of face death rather than give way in any issue of import in the people's struggle.' Through her journal Gleichheit (Equality), with a circulation in 1914 to 125,000? she was able to exert a powerful influence in the formation of socialist and communist policy on the women question, and on the policy of a number of trade unions toward women workers?" Clara Zatkin called upon " the workers to throw their whole power into the struggle against imperialist wars without the slightest hesitation or reserve." -From the introduction by Philip S. Foner