RCIT Congress 2023: Women’s Liberation is an Inherent Part of the Revolutionary Struggle…or the Struggle is Lost!

2023 Congreso de la CCRI: La Liberación de la Mujer es parte inherente de la Lucha Revolucionaria… ¡o la lucha está perdida!

International Womens’ Day 2023

2023년 국제 여성의 날

Argentina: Revolutionaries at the Forefront of Women’s Struggles

Argentina: Solidarity with Karen Marín and All Fighters against Women’s Oppression

8 March 2021: Our Greatest Generation of Revolutionary Women

COVID-19: Domestic Violence and the Lockdown

Violence and Feminicide: They may hurt us...but we will destroy them!

Sisters – Let Us become Heroines of the Liberation Struggle of Our Gender, as Well as of All Oppressed!   [DEUTSCH]

Rapists in Blue – About the Vile Deeds of UN troops

8 March: Sisters, Let Us Set the World Alight!

8 March 2016: For a Revolutionary Women's Movement! (Video Statement by Almedina Gunić)

For Women's Liberation - against Imperialism!  [DEUTSCH]

Austria: Successful Rally on International Women’s Day

Forward to a Militant March 8!

International Womens’ Day 2023

By Medina Avdagić, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 8th March 2023, www.thecommunists.net

 

In 1917, the revolution in Russia was sparked by the protest of women, on the International Womens’ Day. More than a century later, we see the dawn of the same spirit rising again.

 

On this Historic Day We March, because our Iranian sister Mahsa Amini was brutally killed in custody by the Gasht-e Ershad (Guidance Patrols). The notorious moral police took her life, so we took the streets fighting for freedom.

 

On this Historic Day We March, united with all the sisters in Ukraine who are fighting against the occupation war of imperialist Russia. A truly free and independent Ukraine can only be achieved without NATO, EU and other imperialists hijacking the just defense of our people.

 

On this Historic Day We March, singing on the streets with our sisters in Peru, fighting against the Boluarte regime and all the attempts to stigmatize our voices of struggle (Terruqueo). THEY will never succeed to silence us.

 

On this Historic Day We March, following the paths of the women in America Latina and Africa who organize campaigns and protests of the masses against gender violence. All the women who punch back, protecting their lives, their sisters, and future generations.

 

On this Historic Day We March, honoring the hundreds of thousands of poor workers and farmers, mostly women who built a resistance movement in India over the last year against the massive hunger crisis. Caring for the land, they cared for all activists too.

 

On this Historic Day We March, facing how our homes in Palestine are burnt down by Zionist settlers, our family and friends murdered by the Apartheid state. They believe to destroy us with fire, but we are clinging to flames…the flames of our resistance, of our Intifada.

 

On this Historic Day We March, because THEY tried to take away:

 

Our Freedom and Independence

 

Our Voice and Bodily Autonomy

 

Our Land and Food

 

Our Homes and the Homes of our Ancestors.

 

The International Womens’ Day is the day we take the flowers gifted to us, to put them in our hair, our uniforms, our weapons.

 

The flowers will accompany us in the socialist revolution when we smash the capitalist system and its integrated patriarchy.

 

The flowers will fall from our hair, our uniforms, our weapons into the graves of those who thought they can take away what always was and is, truthfully ours.

메디나 아브다지치, 혁명적 공산주의인터내셔널 동맹 (RCIT), 2023년 3월 8일, www.thecommunists.net

 

1917년 러시아 혁명은 국제 여성의 날에 여성들의 시위로 불이 붙었다. 한 세기 이상이 지난 지금, 우리는 같은 정신의 동이 트는 것을 다시 본다.

이 역사적인 날에 우리는 행진한다. 우리의 이란 자매 마샤 아미니가 폭력 경찰에 의해 구금되어 잔인하게 살해되었기 때문이다. 악명 높은 도덕 경찰이 그녀의 목숨을 앗아갔다. 그래서 우리는 해방을 위해 싸우러 거리로 나왔다.

이 역사적인 날에 우리는 제국주의 러시아의 점령 전쟁에 맞서 싸우고 있는 우크라이나의 모든 자매들과 어깨 걸고 행진한다. 진정으로 자유로운 해방·독립 우크라이나는 우리 인민의 정의의 방위전쟁을 가로채지 못하게 나토, EU 등 제국주의자들을 물리치는 것을 통해서만 달성할 수 있다.

이 역사적인 날에 우리는 페루의 우리 자매들과 함께 거리에서 노래하며, 우리 투쟁의 목소리에 색깔을 들씌어 투쟁을 무너뜨리려는 볼루아르테 정권에 맞서 싸우며 행진한다. 그들은 결코 우리를 침묵시키는 데 성공하지 못할 것이다.

이 역사적인 날에 우리는 여성 폭력에 반대하는 대중 시위를 조직한 라틴아메리카와 아프리카 여성들의 길을 따라 행진한다. 그들의 생명과 그들의 자매, 그리고 미래 세대의 생명을 보호하기 위해 반격에 나선 모든 여성들이 열어놓은 길을 따라 행진한다.

이 역사적인 날에 우리는 인도에서 대규모 기아 위기에 맞서 지난 1년 동안 저항 운동을 만들어간 여성들을 포함한 수십만 명의 가난한 노동자들과 농민들을 기리며 행진한다. 토지를 돌보면서 그들은 모든 활동가들도 돌보았다.

이 역사적인 날에 우리는 우리의 팔레스타인 집이 어떻게 시온주의 정주자들에 의해 불 태워졌는지, 우리의 가족과 친구들이 어떻게 아파르트헤이트 국가에 의해 살해되었는지 마주하며 행진한다. 그들은 우리를 불로 파괴할 것이라고 믿지만, 우리는 우리의 저항과 우리의 인티파다의 불꽃으로 광야를 불 사를 것이다.

이 역사적인 날에 우리는 행진한다, 그들이 빼앗으려 했기 때문이다:

우리의 해방과 독립을

우리의 목소리와 우리 몸의 자율을

우리의 토지와 식량을

 

우리의 집을, 우리 어머니 아버지, 할머니 할아버지의 집을 앗아가려 하기 때문이다.

국제 여성의 날은 우리가 선물 받은 꽃들을 우리의 머리에, 우리의 작업복에, 우리의 무기에 다는 날이다.

꽃들은 자본주의 체제와 그 체제에 내장된 가부장제를 박살내는 사회주의혁명에서 우리와 함께할 것이다.

꽃들은 우리의 머리카락과 작업복과 무기로부터 떨어져 저들의 무덤에 내릴 것이다. 언제나 우리의 것이었고 진실로 우리의 것인 모든 것을 빼앗을 수 있다고 생각한 자들의 무덤으로 말이다.

 

 

Report about the latest activities of Defensorías de Géneros and Convergencia Socialista (Argentinean Section of the RCIT), 4 November 2021, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com and www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

One of the priorities of the political work of our Argentinean comrades in Convergencia Socialista (CS) and Defensorías de Géneros (DdG) is the struggle against women’s oppression. Defensorías de Géneros is an organization fighting for the liberation of women and other socially oppressed layers, in close collaboration with Convergencia Socialista.

 

One important recent event of the comrades’ women’s work was participation at the 24th Regional Meeting of women, lesbians, bisexuals, transvestites, trans, intersex and non-binaries at Tigre on 24 October 2021. The CS/DdG contingent constituted a militant and highly visible part at the demonstration and the following conference and advocated a socialist, working-class based perspective. (See the original report in Spanish language as well as numerous pictures below.)

 

Another important campaign, which the comrades did in the last weeks, was the expulsion of a pedophile rapist from a working-class barrio (poor neighborhood) in the southern zone of Buenos Aires. The rapist, Sergio Velázquez, was well-known for abusing girls with a pistole in his hand. While he got sentenced, he had to spend only a few months in jail and was the released by a judge to house arrest on 28 October, for “humanitarian reasons”!

 

Our comrades of Convergencia Socialista and Defensorías de Géneros, together with the Madres Protectoras contra el ASI, immediately started a campaign for the expulsion of this rapist from the barrio. They successfully mobilized the neighborhood via direct actions and soon the police were forced to evacuate the rapist. Below we republish two reports by Gabriela Capurro, a leading member of CS and DdG, in Spanish language as well as pictures and videos.

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

Importante presencia de Defensorías de Géneros en el Encuentro en Tigre

 

el octubre 25, 2021, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com/2021/10/importante-presencia-de-defensorias-de.html

 

 

 

Con una importante participación de compañeras de la zona norte y delegaciones de otras regiones, las Defensorías de Géneros intervinieron activamente en el Encuentro 24° Encuentro Regional de mujeres, lesbianas, bisexuales, travestis, trans, intersexuales y no binaries, Tigre 2021. Algunas de las consignas que agitaron las compañeras: La deuda es con nosotres, no con el FMI. ¡Fuera Manzur! #ManzurNo Cumplimiento efectivo de la ley IVE. Implementación ya de la ESI. Que arda el capitalismo, no el ambiente. Basta de revictimización a les sobrevivientes de violencias. ¡La justicia y los gobiernos son responsables! Libertad a Karen Marín y Nancy Montiel. (ver imágenes)

 

 

 

No a la domiciliaria al pedófilo Sergio Velázquez

 

Por Gabriela Capurro, el octubre 29, 2021, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com/2021/10/no-la-domiciliaria-al-pedofilo-sergio.html

 

 

 

EL juzgado de garantías número 4, a cargo del juez Sebastián Monelos, le otorgó el beneficio de la detención domiciliaria al pedófilo Sergio Velázquez, acusado por cinco niñas de abusos, con y sin acceso carnal. Las Madres Protectoras Contra el ASI y Defensorías de Géneros de la zona sur, cortamos las calles frente a los tribunales de Lomas, exigiendo la prisión efectiva para este pedófilo y por la vida de sus víctimas.

 

Mientras las niñas sufren depresiones, intentos de suicidio y angustia que las afectan en toda su integridad, los jueces de Lomas de Zamora dejan libres a pedófilos y abusadores, dejando bien en claro de qué lado se ubican. Por eso, en esta nueva acción junto a las Madres, desde las Defensorías de Géneros gritamos con mucha fuerza: ¡NO A LA DOMICILIARIA PARA SERGIO VELÁZQUEZ! ¡JUSTICIA POR TODAS LAS NIÑAS Y SI NO LA HAY HABRÁ ESCRACHE! (Ver video en Face de las Defensorías)

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

Con la ACCIÓN DIRECTA expulsamos a pedófilo del barrio

 

Por barrios libres de violencia y pedofilia con la autodefensa de los vecinos y las vecinas

 

Por Gabriela Capurro, de CS y las Defensorías de Géneros de zona sur (ver fotos - ver video), el noviembre 01, 2021, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com/2021/11/con-la-accion-directa-expulsamos.html

 

 

 

En el 2019 una mamá, casi en soledad, decidió contar lo que sus hijas confesaron: Sergio Velázquez, en quien confiaban y que además era su patrón, había abusado de dos de sus hijas en el barrio de Budge, en el partido de Lomas de Zamora. Rápidamente la valentía de esa madre impulsó a que otras niñas hablaran y se animaran a denunciarlo en los tribunales de Banfield. ¡A fuerza de pistola, este pedófilo obligaba a las pibas a todo tipo de abusos!

 

Desde esa fecha, Velázquez apenas estuvo unos meses en la cárcel, ya que el 28 de octubre el fiscal Monelos -del tribunal de Casación N°4-  le otorgó el beneficio de la prisión domiciliaria, alegando una cuestión de humanidad. El abusador fue trasladado a Monte Grande, con la intención de alejarlo de la zona donde perpetró sus crímenes. Frente al pedido de las familias, la justicia planteó la posibilidad de rever su decisión, pero luego de analizar nuevos informes psicológicos, de manera de constatar si las niñas estaban o no afectadas, proponiendo en los hechos su re-victimización.

 

Frente a semejante aberración procesal, las Madres Protectoras contra el ASI y las Defensorías de Géneros decidimos movilizarnos para alertar al barrio a donde mandaron al pedófilo. Sr/a vecino/a, hay un pedófilo en su barrio fue la consigna más agitada en las calles cercanas al domicilio de Velázquez, gracias a la cual decenas de vecinos y vecinas salieron de sus casas para acompañarnos con el reclamo: ¡Fuera Velázquez de nuestro barrio! ¡ Barrios libres de violencia y pedofilia! gritamos sumando a decenas de personas indignadas.

 

Al atardecer, la contundencia de la protesta impuso una primera victoria, Sergio Velázquez fue sacado del barrio por la policía. ¡Ahora vamos por más, para que vuelva a la cárcel y nunca más salga de ahí! Una vez más, valiéndonos del método de la ACCIÓN DIRECTA -la autodefensa y el escrache de las organizaciones y vecinos- demostramos que podemos hacer lo que no hacen desde la justicia, que trabaja para los ricos y la defensa del Patriarcado. Por eso volvemos a repetir: ¡SI NO HAY JUSTICIA, SIEMPRE HABRÁ ESCRACHE! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Report about the latest activities of Defensorías de Géneros and Convergencia Socialista (Argentinean Section of the RCIT), 10 December 2021, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com and www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

As we did already report, one of the priorities of the political work of our Argentinean comrades in Convergencia Socialista (CS) and Defensorías de Géneros (DdG) is the struggle against women’s oppression. (see https://www.thecommunists.net/oppressed/argentina-revolutionaries-at-the-forefront-of-women-s-struggles/)

 

A central issue of this work is the solidarity campaign with Karen Marín. Karen is a young woman who has been sentenced for two years because of "attempted murder". In fact, she successfully defended herself against an attack of a group of men who tried to rob her. She lives currently under house arrest. (See the video with Karen below; see also http://libertadescs.blogspot.com/2021/01/karen-marin-otra-causa-armada.html)

 

As part of this solidarity work, our comrades in CS and DdG organized – together with other groups – a successful demonstration calling for the immediate release of Karen. Below you can see a video from this demonstration which took place in Buenos Aires on 19 November. You can also see excerpts from the speeches of two female comrades – Natalia and Laura – representing Defensoría de Genres and CS.

 

We also reproduce a short report from the demonstration in Spanish language.

 

 

 

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Victoria de la movilización, otorgaron salidas laborales a Karen Marín

 

Por corresponsal, noviembre 19, 2021, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com/2021/11/victoria-de-la-movilizacion-otorgaron.html

 

 

 

La enorme y combativa movilización que tuvo lugar esta mañana -desde la estación hacia los tribunales de Quilmes- logró que que la jueza del caso resolviera otorgarle a Karen Marín la posibilidad de contar con salidas laborales y para estudiar. Karen hace dos años que está detenida, ahora bajo el régimen de prisión domiciliaria, por una causa armada en la que fue acusada de "homicidio en grado de tentativa", ya que se defendió valientemente de una patota que quiso agredirla y robarle. 

 

Reproducimos imágenes de la marcha y fragmentos de los discursos de Natalia y Laura, de Defensorías de Géneros y CS. En la radio abierta que se improvisó frente a los tribunales, hicieron uso de la palabra compañeros y compañeras de diferentes organizaciones políticas, sociales y feministas. Un representante de Rebelión Popular convocó desde allí a pelear por la libertad de Facundo Molares, quien se encuentra preso y con pedido de extradición del estado colombiano, por haber sido solidario con la causa de ese pueblo en lucha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karen Marín, otra causa armada

 

 

 

Por corresponsal, 6.1.2021, http://libertadescs.blogspot.com/2021/01/karen-marin-otra-causa-armada.html

 

 

 

A cuadras de la estación Darío y Maxi, la joven  Karen Marín de tan solo 20 años pasas sus días ansiando la libertad para hacer su vida y recorrer, entre otros lugares, las calles de su barrio en San Francisco Solano. Una escalera angosta nos lleva a la terraza donde nos recibe rodeada de plantas y animales, que son junto a la familia, estudio y militancia, su principal sostén para no caer en una situación de angustia debido a la pérdida de libertad. 

 

Víctima de una causa armada, hoy Karen es en realidad una presa política, porque ha sido detenida por algo que al régimen le causa escozor, como ha sido ejercer su legítimo derecho a la defenderse del ataque de una patota. Las causas armadas no son un fenómeno aislado, sino que forman parte de la política sistemática del aparato represivo, que funciona no para frenar los "delitos" en general, sino principalmente para reprimir y amedrentar a lxs de abajo. 

 

Una investigación realizada entre 2000 y 2001 por la Comisión Investigadora de Procedimientos Policiales Fraguados, detectó la existencia de decenas de causas penales inventadas por la Policía Federal Argentina (PFA) sólo en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y con la finalidad "administrativa" de construir "estadísticas" para responder a las demandas políticas o institucionales y, de esa manera, justificar la existencia de este aparato represivo corrupto hasta la médula.

 

Organismos de derechos humanos han indicado muchas veces que la policía, tanto esta como las que responden a los gobiernos provinciales o distritales, suelen inventar, manipular u ocultar pruebas, con el simple objetivo de dirigir las investigaciones de delitos que efectivamente ocurrieron hacia personas determinadas, particularmente las de menos recursos. Por esto, cientos de personas inocentes  permanecen detenidas durante años, mientras que los responsables -políticos, empresarios, grandes mafiosos o los propios policías- ni si quiera son investigados.

 

En ese sentido, la policía cuenta con la posibilidad -arbitraria y discrecional- de construir la "primera  versión de los hechos", utilizando esa facultad para introducir testigos, sugerir hipótesis, realizar reconocimientos fotográficos y todo tipo de maniobras por fuera del control de los propios fiscales y jueces, para darle forma a los expedientes, sobre los que se realizan los juicios. ¡Por eso, algunos patrulleros cuentan con su propio “kit de causas armadas”, que incluye bolsitas con droga y un revólver, que suelen "plantar" en el lugar de los hechos. 

 

“La policía arma causas porque hay condiciones que lo hacen posible”, dice Luciano Coco Pastrana, abogado del Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS). Este tipo de causas alcanzó relevancia mediática con el caso de Fernando Carrera, que fue condenado a 30 años de prisión por un crimen que no cometió. Fue tan escandalosa que motivó a Enrique Piñeyro a filmar una película, que se llamó "El Rati Horror Show". Este mismo director de cine, fundó después la rama argentina de Innocence Project, una ONG  que defiende a presos inocentes, como Carrera, que fue declarado inocente por la Corte Suprema de la Nación en 2016.

 

La causa contra Karen

 

Karen, después de abrirnos las puertas de su casa y recibirnos junto a su familia, nos cuenta acerca de su causa: "En el 2019 acompañe a mi pareja a una cuadra de mi casa en Solano para que tomara el colectivo, donde fuimos abordados por siete delincuentes que nos arrinconaron, de los cuales me defendí. Ese mismo día fueron a mi casa, buscando amedrentarme, a través de un auto desde el cual nos lanzaban amenazas. 

 

Rápidamente realizamos denuncias en la comisaria, pero el 20 de Noviembre del 2019 la brigada de Quilmes llegó con una orden de allanamiento y detención, acusándome de "robo agravado con uso de arma blanca y lesiones graves". Desde ahí me llevaron a la brigada, donde permanecí una semana, estando los dos primeros esposada a una silla y después en el calabozo, durmiendo en el piso. Al quinto, con la negativa a excarcelarme, me llevaron a Melchor Romero al sector de residentes, aunque sin tener antecedentes policiales. 

 

La justicia habla de mí pasar por la cárcel como un error administrativo, ya que las personas sin antecedentes deben ir a los pabellones de refugio o conducta. Lo que pasa es que el que me acusa tiene un hermano que es parte del sistema judicial, donde cuenta con la impunidad de armar este tipo de causas para protegerse y seguir en libertad, a pesar de ser uno de mis agresores, como si nada hubiera pasado mientras yo padezco el encierro.

 

¿Cómo fueron tus días en el penal?

 

Estuve tres meses en población, pasando las fiestas y cumpleaños. Ahí empecé a organizar un proyecto de escuela de peluquería para las detenidas, porque es uno de mis oficios. Pasaba veintiún horas de encierro total, por eso era importante mantenerme ocupada, para lo cual participé en talleres de escritura, fomentando esta práctica junto con la lectura entre mis compañeras. Al ser estudiante terciaria de Historia también encaré la terea de transmitir mis conocimientos, explicando el rol de las instituciones bajo este sistema. 

 

En la cárcel conocí a muchísimas personas que como yo sufren las peripecias del sistema judicial y su política represiva. Más tarde, gracias a la lucha conquistamos primero mi arresto domiciliario y después el traslado para estar con mi familia. ¡Ahora queda la instancia final, que es ganar definitivamente mi libertad! A partir de todo esto, me fui dando cuenta de que estas instituciones no están para protegernos sino para seguir perpetuando un régimen de impunidad. 

 

¿Cómo era tu vida antes de la causa armada?

 

Mi vida antes de esto era muy distinta, porque activo en el ámbito cultural, siendo  parte de un espacio denominado Sudaka, ubicado en Solano, donde como del Hip Hop organizaba diferentes eventos allí y en distintas plazas de Quilmes, Burzaco, Lanús, Varela Entendiendo al arte como una herramienta que puede ser importante para brindar solidaridad, entre otras cosas proponíamos una entrada solidaria, como la entrega de alimentos para ayudar a los comedores. 

 

De no estar hoy privada de mi libertad yo estaría trabajando en la peluquería, que abría a las 9 y cerraba a las 18, yendo después al profesorado hasta las 22. Cursaba en el Instituto 83 de San Francisco Solano, pudiendo continuar este año de manera virtual, dando algunos finales y encarando un curso sobre cooperativismo, que finalmente terminé. En ese marco, hubo un cambio enorme en mi familia, que siendo impulsada a activar en la calle por mi libertad y a acompañar a otras causas y luchas, la convirtió en un núcleo militante, algo que yo ya hacía y que hoy nos une aún más.

 

Ocupo mi tiempo pensando nuevas ideas para la campaña por mi libertad, conectándome con gente que ha vivido situaciones similares. Siempre resalto a aquellos/as que hoy no pueden tener voz, como Cristina Vázquez que estuvo 11 años presa, en un caso que llegó a trascender. ¡Cuando consiguió su libertad, no pudo superar la situación y se suicidó! No tenía trabajo ni estudio, la justicia, que es de clase, la castigó eso. Es que estamos ante una justicia patriarcal, que se maneja de forma atroz con las mujeres, con leyes creadas por los hombres, por eso el peso de la ley sobre nosotras es enorme.

 

¿Cómo sigue la campaña por tu Libertad?

 

Hoy la campaña por mi libertad  ha crecido, contexto en el que me asumo como una presa política, porque mi detención responde a una política de estado, que es sostenida y defendida  por los distintos gobiernos de turno. Muchas organizaciones se han expresado por mi libertad, incluida Norita Cortiñas, que forma parte de las Madres de Plaza de Mayo. Además de movilizar estamos impulsando una campaña de firmas, que fue presentada ante el Juez.

 

Ahora yo soy militantes de Defensorías de Genero, una organización feminista, y también de Convergencia Socialista. En las últimas marchas -de fin del año pasado- cientos de manifestantes se concentraron frente a las puertas del Juzgado de Quilmes. ¡A ellos y ellas quiero agradecerles e invitarlos/as para que se sigan sumando, asumiendo que lo que me pasó a mí puede ocurrirle a cualquier trabajador/a o joven! Es clave unirnos y luchar, porque de lo contrario resulta difícil hacerle frente a la policía y a todo el sistema judicial. Pueden seguir la causa y la campaña a través de la página de Facebook: Libertad para Karen Marín y la de Defensorías de Géneros.

 

 

 

 

By Almedina Gunić, International Women’s Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 8 March 2021, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

The First Women’s Day was organized in 1911 by the Second International by the initiative of the revolutionary women’s leader Clara Zetkin. Ten years later, since the 8 March 1921, the Women’s Day is held every year all around the world. It is a day to celebrate our struggle for equality, for women’s liberation and for socialism.

 

Today, on the 8 March 2021, our tradition hits the century milestone, and we look back proud on each and every struggle we fought, every lesson we learnt – often enough out of defeat, but also out of victories we achieved. We celebrate our sisters all around the world who never stopped fighting and who will keep up the revolutionary struggle by any means. We celebrate what is the greatest generation of revolutionary women!

 

We celebrate our Uyghur sisters who fight against the draconic attacks and oppression of Chinese imperialism against their people. It is our sisters who openly speak up against rapes and forced sterilizations which they suffered from in the detention camps of the Chinese state. Their fight is our fight!

 

We celebrate our sisters in Poland who took the streets again and again to fight against the new, reactionary abortion law. We rejoice the acquittal of the LGBTQIA2S+ activists and celebrate the solidarity in our joint struggles. The activists in Poland make clear that no individual, no organization, no party or movement, and no state has any right to decide on our bodies. Their fight is our fight!

 

We celebrate our sisters in Myanmar who stay shoulder to shoulder with their revolutionary brothers in the struggle against the brutal military forces. The cowards of the military even fear to walk under the lines of the stringed up women’s clothes as they believe it emasculates men. They are right to believe so, because on the other side of the clothes stand our sisters willing to fight by all means. They are the worst nightmare for the military and the strongest asset of the revolutionary movement! Their fight is our fight!

 

We celebrate our sisters in Syria who have not stopped fighting against the tyranny of Assad despite all of the years of counterrevolutionary attacks and brutal war. They do not fear the dictatorship as they do not fear the imperialist forces from Russia, the United States and the European Union. To hold the banner of the revolution high whatever comes the way, is the lesson our sisters have taught us. Their fight is our fight!

 

We celebrate our sisters in Algeria, in Iraq, in Palestine and in many other countries of the Middle East. Not only are they a leading force of the revolutionary process, they embody new generations of women – the bravest of the brave who are determined to end oppression ones and for all. Their fight is our fight!

 

We celebrate our sisters in the various countries of Sub-Sahara Africa! Poverty-stricken by the inhuman exploitation by the imperialist nations, our sisters organize themselves not only in protests and political fights. They have to come together and join forces to provide their families with the basic needs like water and food, medicine and care. The spirit of collective effort is the strongest where daily life is full of struggle. There is not a single woman in the world who can not learn from our persistent and strong sisters in the region of Sub-Sahara Africa! Their fight is our fight!

 

We celebrate our sisters in Argentina, in Mexico and the whole region of Latin America who fight for their safety of our lives! Feminicide is one of the ugliest faces of women’s oppression and one that our sisters in Latin America know very well. While the capitalist states all around the world use the pandemic as a cover to implement anti-democratic attacks in the name of health, they enable and protect the monsters who are one of the biggest threats for our health. They want us to stay silent because of the fear to die by a virus – but what is with the death by the hand of sexist murderers? Ni una menos (Not one [women] less) is the answer. Their fight is our fight!

 

We as women face triple attacks – when we take the streets, we are attacked by the repression apparatus in the name of pandemic measures. Likewise we are attacked by military, by right wing forces, by gangs, by dictators, by imperialists and their lackeys, and by many other reactionary elements who want to silent democratic and social protests. Last but not least we face the daily threat by violent partners, family members and strangers who take their aggressions out on our bodies! Enough is enough.

 

Today, on the 8 March 2021, we declare our unity as revolutionary women worldwide! Nothing can and nothing will stop our struggle! We will rise united in a revolutionary women’s movement that spans around the globe! Join is in the struggle for this goal!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How women suffer in isolation and poverty

 

Article by Almedina Gunić, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 4 April 2020, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

In South Africa gender-based violence has been reported 87,000 times since the beginning of the lockdown. ^[1] The numbers of reported cases have jumped up by 36 percent in Paris and 32 percent elsewhere in France^[2]. At least 6 femicide have already taken place under the lockdown in Argentina ^[3] and 14 in Turkey. ^[4] These are just a few examples for a worldwide phenomenon which is nothing else but a dangerous threat to the health and lives of us women.

 

 

 

Neither home nor the streets are a safe place

 

 

 

The undemocratic lockdown measures are enforced in the name of safety against an infection with the new coronavirus. However, family and home are not safe places for many of us women. The World Health Organization reports that one third of women who have been in a partnership suffered from physical respectively sexual violence in their relationship. About 38% of murders of women worldwide are committed by a male partner. ^[5] These are numbers from the time before women were forced by state repression to stay at home.

 

In addition to the danger that women often face by their own partners or relatives, the lockdown strengthens the precarious situation. The police in India have beaten up people who were on the street after the lockdown was imposed. ^[6] The President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, gave order to police and army to shoot at anybody who violates the lockdown. ^[7]

 

These aggressive measures by the repression apparatus are a triple danger for women. First, they are forced to stay at home and to deal with their already violent partner. In addition to this, they are threatened to be beaten up or even killed by the police respectively army if they flee from the violence at home. Last but not least, their partners face violence by the repression apparatus which increases the possibility that they pass this violence to the women at home. However, the massive increase of violence which women currently suffer is just the first of many dangers to come.

 

 

 

Lockdown: a reactionary attack of the ruling class

 

 

 

The lockdown measures are imposed under the cover of fighting the virus but in reality these measures are used to abolish various democratic rights and to introduce increased surveillance technologies. The recession which already started in the end of last year will hit the global economy even harder because of the lockdowns. [8] Still, the bourgeoisie is happy to utilize the pandemic to blame the recession on the spread of the virus, distracting from the real reasons of the crisis which is the decaying capitalism. Now, any future event that harms the lives of us workers and oppressed will be explained by the bourgeoisie with inevitable consequences of the pandemic.

 

Billions of already poor people will fall below the poverty line (like it happened in 2008) and the ruling class will blame the virus for it. Millions will die because of misery and hunger and the ruling class will blame COVID-19. Hundreds of thousands of people will be injured or even killed by the repression apparatus and the ruling class will explain it by the necessity to fight the pandemic. In all of this, women will be the ones to suffer the most. Already today, more women than men live in poverty. ^[9]

 

We have seen in countries like South Korea that lockdown is not a necessity even under capitalist respectively imperialist rule. The COVID-19 death toll in South Korea is very low with 177 deaths in a population of more than 51 Million people because of free health screening and testing on a massive scale and strict isolation of infected people. ^[10] The virus is circulating since the 20^th February but the South Korean government has not implemented any lockdown measures since. [11]

 

Although being an imperialist country with a limited number of hospital beds and intense care units, it is an excellent example that the lockdown is not a necessity and is even less effective than the combination of testing and consequent quarantine of infected people. Furthermore to support or even demand lockdown measures means to believe the ruling classes that the incredible current mobilization of forces is easier than the immediate mass production of proper test kits and the extension of the health sector.

 

It is a brutal reality that the measures implemented by the ruling classes under the name of fighting COVID-19 will most likely lead to more deaths than the virus would cause even without any regulations. To support a lockdown or even to demand it means to enable the evitable murder of so many workers and oppressed by something more dangerous than the virus: the bourgeoisie.

 

Women are already the first ones to suffer from these new forms of undemocratic attacks although they just have started recently. At least the increased numbers of violence against women up to femicide makes it more than clear: the most important task for all revolutionaries today is the fight against the capitalists and their undemocratic attacks. Oppose the lockdown, it literally kills us!

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

The RCIT has published numerous statements and articles on the COVID-19 crisis of which several have been translated into different languages. They are all collected at a special sub-page in our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/collection-of-articles-on-the-2019-corona-virus/

 

In particular we draw the attention of readers to these two documents:

 

COVID-19: A Cover for a Major Global Counterrevolutionary Offensive

 

We are at a turning point in the world situation as the ruling classes provoke a war-like atmosphere in order to legitimize the build-up of chauvinist state-bonapartist regimes

 

Manifesto of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 21 March 2020

 

https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-a-cover-for-a-major-global-counterrevolutionary-offensive/

 

Act Now because History is Happening Now!

 

A call to all revolutionary organizations and activists to join forces against the global counter-revolutionary offensive under the cover of COVID-19

 

Open Letter of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 26 March 2020

 

https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/open-letter-act-now-because-history-is-happening-now/

 

 

 

 

 

Call for the International Women's Day: Fight for a revolutionary 8^th March! Fight to end violence against women once and for all!

 

Almedina Gunić, for the International Secretariat and the International Women's Bureau of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 8^th March 2020, www.thecommunists.net

 

There are many forms of violence which are directed at us as women. We are attacked verbally and physically by strangers but also by far more familiar enemies like family relatives, partners and even friends. It is reported that at least one-in-three women experience violence. This violence is often so cruel that it literally kills us. A total of 87,000 women were murdered in 2017 because of their gender. In the particular case of Mexico 22,482 women were killed in the years from 2007 to 2016. On average 10 women are killed per day (reported by state prosecutors).

 

Femicide also distinguishes itself from the murders of men in the tortuous and brutal manner in which they are committed: the murderers of women use three times more often methods like hanging, suffocation and drowning, as well as they use corrosive substances and fire. The extreme violence is not limited to Latin America. India is perceived as the least safe country for women, even worse than war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Syria. Four years ago more than 39 crimes against women were reported every hour in India. Half of our murdered sisters have known their killer as their intimate partner respectively as a family member. More than 13 Million women experience domestic violence in Russia with more than 14,000 dying from the injuries every year. These are just a few countries but violence up to feminicide can be found in every country in the world. But it doesn't end here.

 

Two major types of murder of women exist: the most visible and brutal form of violence is the direct murder of women, i.e. femicide. But there is another, quieter, but systemic and consistent one: women die from negligence, from the despotism and corruption of institutions and from the direct exploitation of capital such as maternal death, hunger, preventable or curable diseases. Women die from clandestine and, in consequence, very dangerous abortions, from strenuous working hours and poor hygienic conditions. Women are killed as a punishment for their journalistic work or their activism in the social struggle.

 

Even the International Women's Day, the 8^th March, is a date chosen to remind us of the killing of 129 women workers in the United States, who died in a fire in the Cotton Textile Factory in 1908. They were locked by the factory owner who wanted to stop them from joining a big strike which took place in March. Still today, the cause for violence against us women up to femicide is to find in the class society, in capitalism as such. The exploitation of our class and the super-exploitation of women workers is the skeleton of today’s society. Any form of violence that we as women experience is directly or indirectly linked to this fact.

 

Our sisters in the semi-colonial countries experience additional oppression including violence because of the super-exploitation of the so-called Third World by imperialist powers. Our black sisters in the American continent and in Europe experience additional oppression including violence because of racism. Likewise our sisters from oppressed nations and sister with a migrant background respectively discriminated religious background experience additional forms of violence due to racism. Although various brutal forms of attacks are led against us women, we can not be stopped to fight against the oppression. We show this every day.

 

We fight on the streets of Iraq, Chile, Hong Kong and many other countries and cities. We do not hesitate to be in the frontline of any resistance struggle. In Palestine we fight with the slingshot against tanks of the Israeli Apartheid state. In Syria we are even qualified snipers in the war against the dictatorship of Assad. We are firmly convinced that the class society, imperialism and dictators may try to break us, but we can not be broken.

 

On this day, the International Women's Day, we remind ourselves that no revolution can be done without women. On this day, the 8^th March we remember all sisters who we lost to the violence against us.

 

But we also promise them as we promise ourselves: Our struggle will not stop until the victory of the proletarian revolution. Our struggle will not stop until we have achieved a society of freedom and justice, a socialist society!

 

Sisters, lets rally together as workers and oppressed to honour and revive the history of the 8^th March as a day of struggle!

 

 

 

No Future without Socialism!

 

No Socialism without Revolution!

 

No Revolution without Women!

 

 

 

Resolution of the First World Congress of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), October 2016, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

Throughout human history, our gender has mastered dehumanizing situations: we have experienced humiliation, oppression and exploitation; yet we have also achieved unimaginable accomplishments. Since the development of private property and the associated origin of class societies, women were forced into an existence of systematic oppression. The oppression of women is the oldest form of oppression of human history and has been reproduced through the centuries and millennia in every class-based society. It has thus developed simultaneously with the emergence of oppressed classes. The existence of women's oppression is therefore merged with the existence of classes and will be buried together with them.

 

Just as capitalism created the proletariat, its own gravediggers, with the suppression of our gender it has forged an army of proletarians and poor women who will be more than willing to push this barbaric system into the grave. The glow of a future of freedom and equality of all people shimmers beneath the filth of revolting exploitation and oppression – in the faces of our militant class sisters all over the world. They form a unity with our oppressed and exploited brothers, whose freedom is inextricably linked to the liberation of women.

 

 

 

The Struggle of Our Sisters in Black Africa

 

 

 

The imperialist beast reveals its repulsive face in particular towards our sisters, as well as brothers, in Africa. Similarly, black people in other parts of the world – whether in the US, Europe, Latin America, or wherever they may be – also experience massive racial oppression. Thus, our black sisters, wherever they may live, are automatically obliged to also fight against other forms of oppression – in addition to their specific struggle against oppression as women. In this way they embody, in the truest sense, the unity of resistance against all forms of oppression and exploitation.

 

Our sisters in sub-Saharan Africa live under the yoke of imperialist exploitation – the former colonial masters from Europe and the US as well as that of Chinese imperialism. In the factories, our sisters are drilled together with their class brothers like military troops. As in many other parts of the world, the informal sector in Sub-Saharan Africa is, in particular, a hotbed of exploitation. In the current reality workers in the formal sector earn 75% (Benin) to 250% (Burkina Faso) more than their brothers and sisters in the informal sector.

 

Corruption has all of Saharan Africa in its grip – with Somalia at the top of the list. The poverty is devastating and manifests itself especially among poor farmers and the landless. The unique exploitation of Black Africa by the colonialists in the past and by the imperialists in the imperialist epoch has driven the development of the region to one of extreme disorganization, both economically and politically. In addition to the existence of numerous criminal gangs and chauvinist-extremist paramilitaries, Saharan Africa provides 40% of all child soldiers worldwide.

 

In addition, millions of women and girls in Africa (as well as Asia) are still subjected to the tradition of genital mutilation, which is a particularly painful and dangerous form of circumcision!

 

To make matters worse, the entire continent suffers such abject poverty due to the imperialist monster that the simplest diseases, in principle curable for a long time, cause the death of hundreds of thousands people! Given the inseparable connection of women's oppression with other forms of oppression, it is easy to imagine how all this affects our sisters in sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Despite all these obstacles, our sisters and brothers in sub-Saharan Africa have initiated numerous battles and strikes. Take for example actions like the multiple-day occupation of the  Chevron-Texaco ferry by 150 women from a village in Nigeria in 2002, which de facto they forced the country’s main oil corporation to stop the transport and production of oil for a week. Or the miners' strike in South Africa in 2012 in which women played active roles. In July 2016, there were also a number of anti-Mugabe protests in Zimbabwe organized by the social democratic MDC-T in which thousands of women participated.

 

These are just three examples of many women-led, progressive struggles, which demonstrate, despite the false, reformist leadership, the immense potential for effective combat by our sisters in sub-Saharan Africa. It is this militancy that needs to find its highest expression, among other things, in the creation of independent class organs (action committees in factories, neighborhoods and villages; proletarian women's movements, militant unions, etc.). The founding of consistently revolutionary parties in the countries of Black Africa, parties which will organize the still young but growing proletariat along with the support of the poor rural and urban masses, is a top priority for our sisters and brothers in the region. Only such revolutionary parties can lead future struggles towards victory. The RCIT raises the following aims of such struggles:

 

* Liberation of the entire continent from the imperialist stranglehold! Immediate and cancellation of all debts which have in reality already been paid back to the imperialist beast by our brothers and sisters hundreds and thousands of times! Nationalization of the corporations under workers' control! Cessation of all military interventions by imperialist troops, immediate withdrawal of these from the continent

 

* Our sisters working in the corporations and all companies associated with them are not only super-exploited, but are also sexually harassed or even systematically raped by the factory owners and their henchmen. For the forming of worker-led anti-sexism committees in the factories to organize themselves against such file encroachments! For the struggle for to improve the living conditions of the female workers, in particular the extension of maternity leave, the creation of free and high-quality childcare facilities in factories, companies, and offices, etc.!

 

* It is the task of the international workers' movement to organize in a completely transparent way assistance for our sisters and brothers in sub-Saharan Africa. The current NGO system uses almost all donations for its own apparatus and is used deliberately to keep the masses of the continent in passivity and to pacify them. Only the solidarity of the international workers' movement in cooperation with the democratic popular organs of the continent can alleviate the immediate suffering of our sisters and brothers.

 

* Fight the informal sector and any type of "moonlighting" which involves not only the gross exploitation of our brothers and sisters, but which also risks their health and, in the case of our sisters, makes it more difficult to avoid sexual assaults! Instead, it is necessary to create a massive public employment program which will be financed by expropriation of the corporations and the support of the international workers' movement!

 

* The massive expansion of the health system should be part of a public employment program! This should include a massive improvement of health care, especially for the villages and a number of information campaigns on female genital mutilation. It should also include information campaigns for preventing and dealing with sexually transmitted and other infectious diseases! Invest in the training of midwives and nurses which could massively improve both the enlightenment and health care for our sisters in every village!

 

* For the solidarity of the young, aspiring working class, together with the poor peasantry and the rural and urban poor in the organized struggle against the consequences of grinding poverty and the economic and political backwardness of the region! This includes the systematic fight by popular militias against criminal gangs and sects, and also includes the protection of children from being used as soldiers!

 

* Consistently fight against the corrupt governments in the region up to the overthrow of these governments by a revolution of the workers and the poor and the creation of workers' and peasants republics in a United Socialist Federation of Black Africa. Only such a revolution can expel the imperialist beast from the continent and only such a federation can lay the foundation for building the economy and the social system for the benefit of the masses throughout the region!

 

 

 

The Struggle of Our Black Sisters Internationally

 

 

 

While the struggle of our sisters in sub-Saharan Africa is characterized, in the first place, by the struggle against the imperialist stranglehold of their continent, the struggle of our black sisters outside Africa is directed against racial oppression. More than 150 years after the official abolition of slavery, and more than 50 years after the official end of apartheid in the US, the living conditions of our sisters and their class brothers are devastating. African-Americans represent a majority of the unemployed, of the prison inmates, of the super-exploited workers, of the homeless and the poor, as well as of the victims of the violence of the capitalist state apparatus.

 

Our sisters have demonstrated superhuman strength and prowess during their history. Let’s recall, for example, Harriet Tubman, a leading figure in the struggle against the slave owners. Or take Rosa Parks or Angela Davis, among many other famous African American women, who led struggles against apartheid and the systematic oppression of blacks in the US. The petty bourgeois-led "Black Lives Matter" movement, which is growing both in the US and in Britain, demonstrates that an immense potential for building a revolutionary black movement exists if we succeed in removing the present-day non-revolutionary leadership. In particular, our sisters should be in the forefront of the founding of a revolutionary black movement, as they have already done in numerous battles of the past.

 

In addition to building a revolutionary party, the building of a revolutionary black movement is of the utmost importance for the successful struggle for the liberation of our sisters and their class brothers.

 

Women's oppression has merged symbiotically with racial oppression, oppression of migrants, national oppression and other forms of oppression. Racism, which can be found in the white working class, is an obstacle in the struggle for proletarian leadership of the movement! Every manifestation of racism, which in reality is an expression of chauvinism, constitutes a major problem.

 

Irrespective of its political weaknesses, the petty-bourgeois-led "Black Lives Matter" movement receives the sympathy and support of at least 2/3 all African-American women in the US, while only 40% of white US citizens support the movement! Chauvinism of white workers must be combated not only by the non-white workers but especially by the white sector of the vanguard of the working class! That is one of the first duties for honorable white proletarians! The fusion of the revolutionary movements of women, blacks, the immigrants and other oppressed groups under the leadership of the multi-national working class movement is essential! In fact, the best starting point for the first steps in the construction of such movements and the revolutionary party is currently the "Black Lives Matter" movement. The struggle for proletarian leadership of the movement on a revolutionary basis is linked to the struggle for:

 

* The creation of militant, armed self-defense units of the movement to defend itself against racist attacks of the repressive apparatus;

 

* Fraternization with the struggle of nationally oppressed and mostly super-exploited migrants against the capitalist system;

 

* The democratic centralist structuring of the movement and thus the proletarization by anti-racism committees in the workplaces, proletarian districts, schools and other residential areas of the multinational proletarian;

 

* The necessary proletarian-led fight against any form of open or covert sexism within the movement, which has become visible through the "SayHerName" initiative;

 

* The connection of the struggles of blacks with those of migrants and the progressive sections of the white working class is possible especially via the struggle for a revolutionary women's movement! Our sisters encounter, in all movements of the oppressed including the workers' movement, similar "internal" issues such as the fight against sexist prejudices – they should act against this via joint meetings and organs (such as commissions)! A lively exchange and the cooperation of women of each movement can create close bonds between all movements of the oppressed!

 

* The open and consistent political struggle within the movement for its revolutionizing through rank and file assemblies that needs to be organized by anti-racism committee. Only by means of a fierce political fight can the ultimately harmful effects of petty-bourgeois pacifism be made visible to all activists. Our revolutionary sisters should, hand in hand with their revolutionary brothers, combine such a struggle with the founding of the revolutionary party.

 

* It is not only the task but also the highest duty of white workers to provide their full and active support in building a revolutionary movement of blacks as well as migrants! There should never be any doubt among our white class sisters or brothers in the necessity for unrestricted identification and dedication with this cause!

 

 

 

The Struggle of our Sisters in the Arab World

 

 

 

Our sisters in the Arab world have demonstrated since the beginning of 2011 that the epoch of revolutions in not over: the best times for revolutions has come with the new period of deep capitalist crisis which started in 2008. The “Arab Spring”, which spread from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, Syria and other countries, has shown the important role of our sisters in the revolution. But the situation has changed for our brothers and sisters since beginning of this unfinished revolution: Tunisia has not succeeded to get rid of the whole rotten apparatus of the former dictatorship und did experience neither a civil war not a significant success for the oppressed people.

 

We stand with the heroic struggle of our Kurdish sisters. Their fight for their liberation as women and for the liberation of their country need to be supported by all revolutionaries in the region! We demand that all foreign armies retreat immediately from Kurdish land – no matter if it is the Turkish-, Iranian, Syrian Army, the NATO-forces and Daesh/IS. We salute the bravery of the women of Rojava who have humiliated Daesh/IS. It is important that our Kurdish sisters be aware that no imperialist great power will bring them liberation, their weapons must be directed against them too. Unfortunately the current political leadership, the PKK/PYD/YPG – despite their progressive approach towards women – is collaborating with imperialism.

 

Libya is in the stranglehold of imperialism. Egypt is ruled by the brutal and bloody military dictatorship of General Sisi. Syria is a battlefield of the uprising against the tyrant Assad and is under attack by the imperialist robbers Russia, US and EU as well as their proxies. Palestine has been destroyed in the Gaza war 2014 but it keeps heroically living and fighting! The task of our sisters in the whole Arab world is to revitalize the endangered flame of democratic revolution.

 

The imperialist threat – the biggest threat for all oppressed people – must be fought back consistently. The tyrant Sisi and Assad must be overthrown together with their complete apparatus. The state of Israel, a local imperialist, must be destroyed once for all and replaced by a free and red Palestine! The democratic revolution must be started spurred again but this time it has to be brought to a close. This means it has to be impelled to a socialist revolution, the conquest of power by the working class in alliance with the urban and rural poor. Our sisters should fight for:

 

* Immediate release of all prisoners of the military dictatorship in Egypt! For investigation commissions of the workers movement jointly with women abused to fight against the mistreatment of women by the military!

 

* Forward to the Third Intifada of the whole Palestinian people! For systematic armament and training of women in the militias of the Palestinian resistance! A Third Intifada will definitely need the already proven courage and fighting strength of our sisters!

 

* For the creation of international workers aid for the oppressed people in Syria! For women’s campaign as part of such an aid project of the international workers movement which focuses on organizing sanitary products, medical supplies, etc. for women and their families!

 

 

 

The Struggle of Our Sisters in India

 

 

 

Our sisters in India are involved in one of the most remarkable and heroic struggles against their oppression. They demonstrate how inextricably their own liberation is connected with the liberation of the workers and the urban and rural poor. The emergence of the self-defense units of the Pink Saris (also called Gulabi Gang) is an example for this. It has its origins in the violent humiliation of a poor peasant woman committed by a male member of one of India’s high castes. In the same spirit, the Gulabi Gang, founded by Sampat Pat Devi and already numbering 150,000 women, fights armed not only against all forms of violence against women, but also against all forms of violence against the poor and the untouchable and lower caste members of all genders and ages.

 

The strike of the untouchables in the summer of 2016, which was also supported by the severely oppressed Muslims in India, demonstrates that the very poor can indeed play a vanguard role in the class struggle. The heroic resistance of the people in Kashmir against the Indian state apparatus, as well as the general strike of 180 million workers on 2 September 2016 – the perhaps largest in the history of humanity – illustrate once again the importance of the Indian working class and poor for the international class struggle.

 

The formation of the Gulabi Gang is also a pointer to what our oppressed class brothers need:  independent working class and popular armed self-defense units. Such militias of workers and the poor in urban and rural areas can later form the basis of an armed uprising as the opening of the road to socialist revolution. Although India will be the country with the most wage laborers in the near future, it is nevertheless urgent for the proletariat to win over the rural peasants and poor as close allies. Let’s not forget that Gulabi Gang emerged in the rural villages of Utter Pradesh. Therefore, such an alliance is crucial for our sisters in India:

 

* Close the ranks with all the oppressed, regardless of their gender in the struggle against oppression and exploitation! Support the right of national self-determination of Kashmir which is occupied by India, regardless of your own national origin! Fight a consistent and determined struggle against Hindu chauvinism, whether it is directed against Dalits, Muslims, women or other oppressed!

 

* For the formation of women committees in all movements and institutions of the oppressed in India! Sexism and rape as any other violence against women should be systematically combated especially in the ranks of our own movements! For regular meetings of women in the neighborhoods, the villages, at work and in schools, to talk openly about all forms of oppression of women and to be able to organize themselves against it!

 

* Women workers, fight together with your class brothers for the control over the factories and enterprises! One-day general strikes are not enough – for an open-ended general strike against the government's attacks! Against Special Economic Zones and for the nationalization of imperialist corporations under the control of the workers! For the expropriation and disempowerment of the ruling class by a proletarian revolution!

 

* Women in the villages – fight together with your Dalit brothers for control of the village courts! These local, democratic institutions need to be placed under control of the oppressed in cooperation with the workers' movement in India!

 

* Systematically expand the Gulabi Gang to a nationwide mass movement of women workers and poor women in close association with the movement of the Dalit, Muslim and other oppressed and the workers' movement! Fight for a revolutionary leadership in the Gulabi Gang, the women's movement and every movement of the oppressed. For the founding of a revolutionary party and for its close association with these movements!

 

 

 

The Struggle of Our Sisters in the Rest of Asia

 

 

 

The struggle of our sisters in India has some unique features. However, the struggles of our sisters in other parts of Asia are in no way less important for the liberation of working class women, the poor peasantry as well as all urban and rural poor. Be it the hundreds of thousands of factory workers in the textile industry of Cambodia and, in particular, the province of Phnom Penh fighting against exploitation; be it the struggles of the Chinese proletariat, where women constitute most of the lowest strata of the working class and migrant workers; be it the hunger strike of workers of Indonesia and their huge mass strikes in recent years which both showed the overwhelming fighting spirit of the Indonesian working class and of the women workers in particular. Just like the struggles of our sisters in India, the struggles against the imperialist beast are also crucial for our sisters in the rest of Asia! The fight against the imperialist beast means a fight against not only against the US, Russia and the Great Powers of Europe, but also against other imperialist powers in Asia like Japan, China and South Korea.

 

* Fight the imperialist beast! The powerful proletariat of Asia is particularly important for the international class struggle! You may lead a victorious struggle against the beast and become a role model for the international proletariat by expropriating the big corporations and putting them under workers’ control!

 

* Fight for a revolutionary leadership of the unions and all organs of the workers' movement! Replace the pro-business unions by real organs of class struggle!

 

* The Asian proletariat in particular has developed impressive female strike leaders in female-dominated factories! These heroines of the working class must play a leading role in the building of the revolutionary women's movement as well as the revolutionary party! They are already a shining example for all proletarian women worldwide!

 

* A revolutionary women's movement under the working class leadership has to also orientate its’ campaigns towards educating the rural poor to put an end to reactionary traditions like forced marriage, genital mutilation, questionable "health practices" for pregnant women, widow burning and others!

 

* The proletariat of Asia has organized itself in its millions during one-day general strikes! It is high time for an indefinite general strike to defeat the attacks of the government! Ultimately, only the armed uprising of the proletariat will open the road to liberation!

 

The struggle of the powerful Asian proletariat is necessarily connected to the struggle of the poor and the landless peasants. The Asian proletariat is in most parts of the region much more developed, organized and greater in numbers than, for example, the working class in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the agrarian issues are also of great importance for Asia. In fact, the workers’ revolution in Asia as well as worldwide will need the support of the poor peasantry and in general the support of the urban and rural poor. The revolutionary women's movement has indeed to be under the political leadership of the working class. However the masses of the women of the other oppressed classes and layers also have to be organized by this movement. To make this possible, the struggle for a public employment program which serves the poor as well as for the struggle to distribute land to the poor peasantry is a vital and inseparable part of the revolutionary strategy of every liberation movement, and thus also of the revolutionary women's movement.

 

 

 

Our Sisters in Latin America

 

 

 

In Latin America, there is a long tradition of women's movements which are directed against machismo. For many years, we have seen major demonstrations of our sisters, which give expression to the lively, daily struggle of our sisters against sexism and women's oppression. In particular, noteworthy is the struggle against the blatant killing of women, so-called Femicide, which has become a central issue for mass demonstrations.

 

In Argentina, numerous actions took place under the slogan "Ni una menos" (Not one less) as well as in Mexico under the slogan “Ni una muerta más” (Not one more female death). These slogans have become the battle cry of the women's movements of Argentina, of Mexico and now also of Peru. These movements specifically take up the interests of poor women, as these sisters are the main targets of femicide in nearly all areas of Latin America.

 

In Buenos Aires, more than 200,000 women demonstrated against femicide in June 2015. In Lima, in August 2016, between 200,000 and one million people took to the streets to protest violence against women – the largest march in the history of the country! On the average, every day, murder is attempted against a woman in Peru. On every third day in that country, one of our sisters actually dies! In Mexico alone, on the average, 6 females are murdered every day! Among our sisters in Argentina, a woman is murdered every 30 hours! To protest this situation, our sisters in Argentina held a major demonstration in October 2016 as well as conducted a one-hour strike against. In Mexico, Bolivia, Chile, El Salvador, Paraguay and Uruguay simultaneous demonstrations against femicide have been held . In La Paz (Bolivia), indigenous women of the Aymara also joined the protest. In Chile, 25,000 women demonstrated in the capital Santiago. In this latter country in particular, in a country-wide protest held in October 2016, one of our murdered sisters became a symbol: 16-year-old Lucia Perez, who was drugged and raped before her murder.

 

The governments of all these countries are complicit in the situation that exists, as they are not able, and even more so, are not willing to take serious measures to alleviate the danger in which women are living. In addition the movements themselves are dominated by petit bourgeois feminists, who in some cases (like in Mexico) argue against men’s participating at any protests as they are the “evil” in the eyes of these so-called feminists.

 

The struggle against machismo is life and death struggle for our sisters in Latin America, in the truest sense of the word. The current movements of the "Ni una menos" and “Ni una muerta más” must not be the climax in this struggle but must be the beginning of the resistance against machismo and femicide. For our sisters, the slogans "Ni una menos" and “Ni una muerta más” must become a reality. Simple demonstrations and short strikes are not enough! In memory of all the fallen sisters like Lucia Perez, the working class and poor women in Latin America should fight for:

 

* Building self-defense units of women, supported by the workers' movement and all progressive organizations!

 

* Workers' tribunals to address the perpetrators in each individual case of violence against women. Such workers’ tribunals should be nominated by the workers' movement, and in particular, by the proletarian women's movement.

 

* It is high time that solidarity campaigns be organized by the entire workers' movement alongside the conducting of awareness campaigns against violence. Our proletarian brothers must do everything in their might to support the movement in the struggle against machismo and femicide!

 

* Women's commissions within the workers' movement, which will combat sexism in its own ranks! We also need women’s assemblies in workplaces, schools and universities, as well as in neighborhoods, to openly discuss and fight against women’s oppression!

 

*The right of women to seek abortion at any public hospital for free! Full access to birth control for free!

 

* For a revolutionary proletarian women's movement that unites the struggle against machismo and femicide in every country of Latin America and throughout the entire region!

 

 

 

For an International Revolutionary Women's Movement!

 

 

 

The regions of the world and the struggles of our class sisters and brothers we mentioned so far are just a selection of hotspots which are crucial for the whole female proletariat, for the women of the poor peasantry and the urban and rural poor. The solutions mentioned so far are only portions of the revolutionary program which should also form the basis of the international, revolutionary women's movement! Such an international, revolutionary women's movement has to unite with the struggles of other liberation movements as the fate of the female proletariat is objectively closely connected with the struggles of the semi-colonies, with the racially, ethnically and nationally oppressed masses in different parts of the world and with the billions of poor.

 

Contrary to the strategy of the bourgeois and petty bourgeois women's movements, which advocate a cross-class unity of all women, the RCIT calls for the unity of our class and all oppressed! The existence of women's oppression is bound to the class system which is directly or indirectly defended by the bourgeois and petty bourgeois feminists. Apart from our biological sex we have NOTHING in common with the bourgeois feminists and we DON’T WANT to share any other similarities with them. Consequently, we fight all those petty-bourgeois feminists who serve the bourgeois forces.

 

However, we don’t ignore all those other petty-bourgeois feminists who are actively connected to the oppressed masses and who are supporting progressive struggles of the oppressed. Instead, we attempt to win them over to breaking consistently with their non-revolutionary politics. We try to help them understand that, in the end, it is only possible to transform their honest wishes for women’s liberation and the liberation of all oppressed into reality if the struggle is based upon a revolutionary leadership of the working class!

 

In addition to the demands we have already mentioned, a revolutionary proletarian program for women’s’ liberation has to include the following calls:

 

* Fight consistently against the violence that women suffer from! For self-defense units of women in order to fight together against violence! For nationwide, self-organized women crisis centers to protect victimized women and their children against the violence! For a broad campaign of the workers' movement and all movements of the oppressed to educate the masses to stand up against violence on women!

 

* Equal pay for equal work! Build Anti-Sexism Committees in the workers' movement as well as in all movements of the oppressed!

 

* No to unstable and precarious jobs! Fight for a minimum wage!

 

* Organize the masses of working women in the trade unions!

 

* Expropriate large landowners! Distribute the land to the poor peasantry! Equal rights for poor farmers regardless of their gender in the distribution of land and control of the country!

 

* Free and full access to contraceptive methods! For the right to abortion!

 

* Fight the imperialist beast wherever it raises its head! For the liberation of the semi-colonies from the imperialist yoke of oppression and exploitation! For the victory of the oppressed peoples against the imperialists!

 

* Socialization of housework and childcare! Fight for free and high-quality facilities such as laundry rooms, canteens, nurseries and others!

 

 

 

The revolutionary, international women's movement is the unity of all class sisters with all other oppressed regardless of differences in gender, age, nationality or any other superficial difference! The revolutionary, international women's movement does not limit its struggle to its own successful development but rather participates in and actively supports all liberation movements of the oppressed, as well as the workers' movement and the struggle for building the revolutionary world party!

 

To all the feminists in their ivory towers of gender mainstreaming and discussions about “language is creating consciousness and reality”: We, the women workers – together with our class brothers and all the oppressed – we create consciousness and the reality through our DEEDS! Not you, through your musings about the importance of academic terms. You will soon be forgotten.

 

Our deeds will sweep away any oppression and exploitation! We will free all women and even all of humanity! We will be the future glorious heroines of human history who will have smashed capitalism and imperialism and who will end class-based society, poverty and misery once and for all!

 

 

 

 

 

Resolution des Ersten Weltkongresses der Revolutionary Communist International Tendency, Entwurf von Almedina Gunić, Internationale Frauensekretärin der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

In der modernen Geschichte der Menschheit hat unser Geschlecht menschenunwürdige Situationen gemeistert, Demütigung, Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung erfahren und dennoch unvorstellbare Leistungen erbracht. Seit der Entwicklung des Privateigentums und der damit verbundenen Enstehung von Klassengesellschaften wurden Frauen in ein Dasein der systematischen Unterdrückung gedrängt. Die Frauenunterdrückung ist die älteste Unterdrückungsform der Menschheitsgeschichte und hat sich durch die Jahrhunderte und Jahrtausende hinweg in jeder Klassengesellschaft reproduziert. Sie hat sich somit zeitgleich mit der Entstehung unterdrückter Klassen entwickelt. Das Dasein der Frauenunterdrückung ist mit der Existenz von Klassen verschmolzen und wird mit diesen untergehen.

 

So wie der Kapitalismus mit dem Proletariat seinen eigenen Sargträger erschuf, schmiedet er mit der Unterdrückung unseres Geschlechtes eine Armee an Proletarierinnen und armen Frauen die mehr als bereit sein werden dieses barbarische System zu Grabe zu tragen. Der Glanz einer Zukunft der Freiheit und Glechheit aller Menschen schimmert unter dem Dreck der widerwärtigsten Ausbeutung und Unterdrückung hervor – in den Gesichtern unserer kämpfenden Klassenschwestern, überall auf der Welt. Sie bilden eine Einheit mit unseren unterdrückten und ausgebeuteten Brüdern, deren Freiheit untrennbar mit der Befreiung der Frau verbunden ist.

 

Der Kampf unserer Schwestern in Schwarzafrika

 

Die imperialistische Bestie zeigt ihr widerwärtiges Gesicht in einem besonderen Ausmaß gegenüber unseren Schwestern wie auch Brüdern in Afrika. Ebenso erfahren Schwarze in anderen Teilen der Welt eine massive rassische Unterdrückung, sei es in den USA, Europa, Lateinamerika oder anderen Teilen der Welt. Damit haben unsere schwarzen Schwestern, wo auch immer sie leben automatisch gegen weitere Unterdrückungsformen zu kämpfen neben den Kampf gegen die Unterdrückung als Frau. Sie verkörpern im wahrsten Sinne die Einheit des Widerstandes gegen jegliche Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung. Unsere Schwestern in Schwarzafrika stehen unter dem Joch der imperialistischen Ausbeutung, die neben den europäischen ehemaligen Kolonialherren inzwischen auch den chinesischen Imperialismus umfasst. In den Fabriken werden unsere Schwestern zusammen mit ihren Klassenbrüdern militärisch auf Leistung gedrillt. Die Korruption hat ganz Schwarzafrika im Würgegriff mit Somalien an der Spitze der Korruptionsliste. Die Armut ist verheerend und äußert sich in einem besonderen Ausmaß unter den armen Bäuerinnen und Bauern sowie Landlosen. Die besondere Ausbeutung von Schwarzafrika durch die Kolonialherren in der Vergangenheit und durch die Imperialisten in der Gegenwart haben die Entwicklung der Region sowohl wirtschaftlich als auch politisch in eine extreme Zerrütung getrieben. Neben der Existenz zahlreicher krimineller Gangs und chauvinistisch extremistischer Para-Militärs stellt Schwarzafrika 40% aller Kindersoldaten weltweit. Angesichts der untrennbaren Verbindung der Frauenunterdrückung mit anderen Unterdrückungsformen ist es leicht vorstellbar wie sich all das auf unsere Schwestern in Schwarafrika auswirkt. Umso heldenhafter sind die zahlreichen Kämpfe und Streiks unserer Schwestern und Brüder in Schwarzfrika. Seien es Aktionen wie die mehrtägige Besetzung eine der zentralsten Fähren des Ölkonzerns ChevronTexacon durch gerademal 150 Frauen aus einem Dorf in Nigeria im Jahre 2002, die einen faktischen Transport- und Prosuktionsstopp des Konzerns für eine Woche zur Folge hatte. Oder die Streiks der Minenarbeiter in Südafrika im Jahre 2012 an denen sich ganze Protestzüge von Frauen aktiv beteiligten. Im Juli 2016 gab es ebenso eine Vielzahl an Anti-Mugabe Protesten von tausenden Frauen in Zimbabwe, die von der sozialdemokratischen MDC-T organisiert wurden. Das sind nur drei Beispiele aus zahlreichen von Frauen geführten, fortschrittlichen Kämpfen, die trotz der falschen, reformistischen Führung das immense Potential für die Kampfkraft unserer Schwestern in Schwarzafrika trotz der genannten Probleme der Region aufzeigen. Es ist diese Kampfkraft, die ihren höchsten Ausdruck unter anderem darin finden muss, dass sie klassenunabhängige Organe schafft. Der Aufbau von konsequent revolutionären Parteien in den jeweiligen Ländern Schwarzafrikas, die sowohl das noch junge aber zunehmende wachsende Proletariat organisiert, als auch die Unterstützung unter den Massen der ländlichen und städtischen Armut findet, hat höchste Priorität für unsere Schwestern wie auch Brüder in der Region. Nur mit einer solchen revolutionären Partei lassen sich die notwendigen Kämpfe siegreich führen. Zu den Zielen dieser Kämpfe gehört:

 

* Befreiung des gesamten Kontinents aus dem imperialistischen Würgegriff! Sofortige und entschädigungslose Streichung aller Schulden, die in Wirklichkeit schon hundert- und tausendfach von unseren Schwestern und Brüdern der imperialistischen Bestie in den Rachen geworfen wurde. Verstaatlichung der Konzerne unter ArbeiterInnenkontrolle! Beendigung aller militärischen Einmischungen durch imperialistische Truppen, sofortiger Abzug dieser aus dem Kontinent!

 

* Es ist die Aufgabe der internationalen ArbeiterInnenbewegung auf einer Ebene der vollkommenen Transparenz und Gleichberechtigungen Hilfsleistungen und –güter an unsere Schwestern und Brüder in Schwarzafrika zu leisten. Das derzeitige NGO-System verschlingt fast alle Spenden durch den eigenen Apparat und wird beswusst genutzt, die Volksmassen des Kontinents in Passivität und Duldung des Systems zu erziehen. Nur die Solidarität der internationalen ArbeiterInnenbewegung in Zusammenarbeit mit den demokratischen Volksorganen des Kontinents können die unmittelbare Not unserer Schwestern und Brüder lindern.

 

* Konsequenter Kampf gegen die korrupten Regierungen in der Region bishin zur Zerschlagung dieser Regierungen durch eine Revolution der ArbeiterInnen und Armen sowie der Schaffung von Arbeiter- und Bauernrepubliken in einer Vereinten Sozialistischen Föderation Schwarzafrika. Nur eine solche Revolution kann die imperialistische Bestie aus dem Land verjagen und nur eine solche Föderation kann die Grundlage schaffen, die Wirtschaft und das Sozialsystem der gesamten Region zum Wohle der Volksmassen aufzubauen!

 

Der Kampf unserer schwarzen Schwestern international

 

Ist der Kampf unserer Schwestern in Schwarzafrika in erster Linie durch den Kampf gegen den imperialistischen Würgegriff, in dem ihre Heimat gehalten wird, geprägt so ist der Kampf unserer schwarzen Schwestern außerhalb Afrikas von permanenten Widerstand gegen die rassische Unterdrückung bestimmt. Mehr als 150 Jahre nach der offiziellen Abschaffung der Sklaverei und mehr als 50 Jahre nach dem offiziellen Ende der Apartheid in den USA ist die Lebenslage unserer Schwestern und ihrer Klassenbrüder verheerend. Afroamerikanerinnen und –amerikaner stellen einen Großteil der Arbeitslosen, der in Gefängnis gepferchten Häftlinge, der überausgebeuteten Arbeitskräfte, der Obdachlosen und Armen sowie der Todesopfer durch die Gewalt des kapitalistischen Staatsapparates. Dabei haben gerade auch unsere Schwestern in ihrer gesamten Geschichte übermenschliche Kraft und Heldenmut an den Tag gelegt. Sei es als führende Figuren im Kampf gegen die Sklavenhalter wie das unter anderem in der Person der Harriet Tubman lebendigen Ausdruck fand. Sei es als Führerinnen des Kampfes gegen die Apartheid und systematische Unterdrückung der Schwarzen in den USA wie das in der zu großen Berümtheit gelangten Rosa Parks oder auch Angela Davis neben unzählgen anderen berühmten afroamerikanischen Frauen seinen körperlichen Ausdruck fand. Die kleinbürgerlich geführte Bewegung „Black Lives Matter“, die sowohl in den USA als auch in Britannien im Wachsen begriffen ist, zeigt welch immenses Potential für den Aufbau einer revolutionären Schwarzenbewegung vorhanden ist wenn es gelingt die politisch falsche Führung los zu werden. Gerade unsere Schwestern müssen im Aufbau und der Führung einer revolutionären Schwarzenbewegung an vordester Front stehen, wie sie es schon in zahlreichen Kämpfen der Vergangenheit geschafft haben. Neben dem Aufbau einer revolutionären Partei ist der Aufbau einer revolutionären Schwarzenbewegung für den erfolgreichen Kampf zur Befreiung unserer Schwestern und ihrer Klassenbrüder von größter Bedeutung. Die Frauenunterdrückung verschmilzt symbiotisch mit der rassischen Unterdrückung, der Unterdrückung von Migrantinnen und Migranten, der nationalen Unterdrückung und anderer Unterdrückungsformen. Die Verschmelzung der revolutionären Bewegungen der Frauen, der Schwarzen, der MigrantInnen und anderer Unterdrückter unter Führung der multinationalen ArbeiterInnenbewegung ist unerlässlich. Der beste Anknüfungspunkt für die ersten Schritte im Aufbau solcher Bewegungen sowie der revolutionären Partei ist tatsächlich die „Black Lives Matter“ Bewegung. Der Kampf um eine proletarische Führung der Bewegung auf revolutionärer Grundlage ist verbunden mit dem Kampf

 

* Für die Schaffung von militanten, selbstbewaffneten Verteidigungsorganen der Bewegung um sich gegen rassistische Übergriffe des Repressionsapparates und der zahlreichen Rechten zu verteidigen,

 

* Für die Verbrüderung mit dem Kampf der national unterdrückten und mehrheitlich überausgebeuteten Migrantinnen und Migranten gegen das kapitalistische System,

 

* Für die demokratisch-zentralistische Strukturierung der Bewegung und damit verbunden der Proletarisierung durch Anti-Rassismus Komitees in den Betrieben, den proletarischen Stadtteilen, den Ausbildungsstätten und anderen Lebensmittelpunkten des multinationalen Proletariats,

 

* Für den offenen und konsequenten politischen Kampf innerhalb der Bewegung um ihre Revolutionierung durch Basisversammlungen, die von Anti-Rassismuskomitees organisiert werden müssen. Nur durch einen scharfen politischen Kampf können die kleinbürgerlich-pazifistischen und letztlich bremsenden und schädlichen Einflüsse für alle AktivistInnen sichtbar gemacht werden. Einen solchen Kampf müssen unsere revolutionären Schwestern zusammen mit ihren revolutionären Brüdern mit dem Kampf um den Aufbau der revolutionären Partei verbinden.

 

* Es ist nicht nur Aufgabe sondern höchste Pflicht für die weißen Arbeiterinnen und Arbeiter ihre uneingeschränkte Soldarität und aktive Unterstützung im Aufbau einer revolutionären Bewegung der Schwarzen wie auch der MigrantInnen zur Verfügung zu stellen! Uneingeschränkte Identifikation und Hingabe mit dieser Sache darf weder für unsere weißen Klassenschwestern noch unserer weißen Klassenbrüder jemals im Zweifel stehen sondern muss im Gegenteil Selbstverständlichkeit sein!

 

Der Kampf unserer Schwestern im arabischen Raum

 

Unsere Schwestern im arabischen Raum haben mit Beginn 2011 bewiesen, das die Zeit der Revolutionen nicht vorbei ist, sondern im Gegenteil: Die beste Zeit für Revolutionen ist mit der tiefen kapitalistischen Krise, die 2008 begann, gekommen. Gerade der sogenannte „arabische Frühling“, der zuerst Tunesien und dann auch Ägypten, Syrien, Lybien und zahlreiche andere Länder Nordafrikas erfasste, hat die Rolle unserer Schwestern in einer Revolution eindrucksvoll gezeigt. Doch seit dem Beginn der nie zu Ende gebrachten demokratischen (halben) Revolutionen, hat sich die Lage unserer Brüder und Schwestern gewandelt: Tunesien hat es nie geschafft, den gesamten verrotteten Apparat der ehemaligen Diktatur abzuschütteln und blieb sowohl von einem wütenden Bürgerkrieg aber auch von jeglichem Erfolg für das unterdrückte Volk verschont.

 

Wir stehen in Solidarität mit dem heroischen Kampf unserer kurdischen Schwestern. Ihr Kampf für ihre Befreiung als Frauen und für die Befreiung ihres Landes muss von allen RevolutionärInnen in der Region unterstützt werden! Wir fordern, dass alle ausländischen Truppen sofort aus dem kurdischen Land abgezogen werden - egal ob es sich um die türkisch-iranische, syrische Armee, die NATO-Kräfte oder Daesh / IS handelt. Wir ehren die Tapferkeit der Frauen von Rojava, die Daesh / IS gedemütigt haben. Es ist wichtig, dass unsere kurdischen Schwestern wissen, dass keine imperialistische Großmacht sie befreien wird. Ihre Waffen müssen auch gegen die Imperialisten gerichtet sein. Leider arbeitet die aktuelle politische Führung - die PKK/PYD/YPG - trotz ihrer fortschrittlichen Herangehensweise an Frauen - mit dem Imperialismus zusammen.

 

Lybien ist im Würgegriff des Imperialismus. Ägypten wird von einer brutalen und blutigen Militätdiktatur unter General Sisi regiert. Syrien ist ein Schlachtfeld im Krieg gegen den Diktator Assad und wird von den imperialistischen Raubtieren Russland, USA und EU sowie deren jeweilige Handlanger in Brand gehalten. Palästina ist mit dem Gaza-Krieg 2014 in seinem Herz bis auf den Grundboden niedergewalzt worde und lebt dennoch heldenhaft und kämpferisch weiter! Die Aufgabe unserer Schwestern im gesamten arabischen Raum, ist es die inzwischen schon erloschene Flamme der demokratischen Revolutionen neu zu entfachen.

 

Die imperialistische Bedrohung, die größte Gefahr für alle unterdrückten Völker, muss konsequent zurückgeschlagen werden. Die Diktatoren Sisi und Assad müssen ein für alle Mal mit ihrem gesamten Apparat gestürzt werden. Der Staat Israel, der lokale Imperialist, muss ein für alle Mal zerschlagen werden um Platz zu machen für ein freies, rotes Palästina! Die demokratischen Revolutionen müssen auf ein neues losgetreten werden, aber diesmal müssen sie konsequent zu Ende geführt werden: Das bedeutet bis zur sozialistischen Revolution, der Machtergreifung der ArbeiterInnenklasse mit Unterstützung der Armen von Stadt und Land. Gerade für unsere Schwestern gilt es zu kämpfen für:

 

* Sofortige Freilassung aller politischen Gefangenen der Militärdiktatur in Ägypten! Für den Einsatz von Untersuchungskomitees der ArbeiterInnenbewegung zusammen mit betroffenen Frauen um gegen die Misshandlungen und Übergriffe auf die gefangenen Frauen durch das Militär vorzugehen!

 

* Für die Dritte Intifada, getragen vom palästinensischen Volk! Für die systematische Bewaffnung und Ausbildung gerade auch von Frauen in kämpfenden Milizen des palästinensischen Widerstandes! Eine Dritte Intifada wird den lange schon bewiesenen Mut und die Kampfkraft unsere Schwestern dringend brauchen!

 

* Für den Aufbau einer internationalen ArbeiterInnenhilfe für das unterdrückte Volk Syriens! Für eine Frauenkampagne in einem solchen Hilfsprojekt der internationalen ArbeiterInnenbewegung, die besonderen Wert auf die Versorgung der Frauen mit entsprechenden Hygienemitteln, medizinischen Gütern und allem was für ihre Familien brauchen gewährleistet!

 

Der Kampf unserer Schwestern in Indien

 

Unsere Schwestern in Indien führen eine der bemerkenswertesten und heldenhaftesten Kämpfe gegen ihre Unterdrückung an. Sie beweisen wie untrennbar ihre eigene Befreiung mit der Befreiung der ArbeiterInnen, der armen Bauern und Bäuerinnen wie aller Armen ist. Die Entstehung der Selbstverteidigungseinheiten der Pink Saris, der Gulabi Gang, ist dafür exemplarisch. Sie hat ihren Ursprung in der gewaltsamen Unterbindung einer Demütigung, die an einem armen Bauern durch einen Kastenhöheren vollzogen wurde. Ihrem Ursprung entsprechend kämpft die von Sampat Pat Devi initiierte Gulabi Gang inzwischen schon zu mehr als 150.000 Frauen nicht nur bewaffnet gegen jede Form von Gewalt an Frauen, sondern auch gegen jede Form von Gewalt an Armen, an Unberührbaren wie Kastenniederen jeden Geschlechts und Alters. Der Streik der Unberührbaren im Sommer 2016, der ebenso von Seiten der in Indien massiv unterdrückten Muslime unterstützt wurde, zeigt welche Rolle als Avantgarde des Klassenkampfes die Ärmsten der Armen spielen können. Die heroischen Kämpfe in Kashmir gegen den indischen Staatsapparat sowie der wahrscheinlich größte Generalstreik in der Geschichte der Menschheit mit 180 Millionen Arbeiterinnen und Arbeitern am 2. September 2016 zeigen erneut die Bedeutung der indischen ArbeiterInnen und Armen für den internationalen Klassenkampf. Die Formation der Gulabi Gang ist in Wirklichkeit ein Fingerzeig auf eine Notwendigkeit, die auch auf unsere unterdrückten Klassenbrüder zutrifft: Die klassenunabhängige Formation von bewaffneten Selbstverteidigungseinheiten. Solche Milizen von ArbeiterInnen und den Armen aus Stadt und Land sind die Basis eines bewaffneten Aufstandes, der den Weg zur sozialistischen Revolution eröffnet. Auch wenn Indien in naher Zukunft die wohl größte Masse an Lohnabhängigen hervorbringen wird, die sich in einem Land findet, gilt es die Werktätigen und Armen des Landes als enge Verbündete des Proletariats zu gewinnen. Immerhin entstand auch die Gulabi Gang in den Dörfern von Utter Pradesh. Für unsere Schwestern in Indien gilt daher:

 

* Bildet einen Schulterschluss mit allen Unterdrückten, egal welchen Geschlechts im Kampf gegen Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung! Setzt euch ein für das nationale Selbstbestimmungsrecht des von Indien besetzten Teils von Kashmir, unabhängig eurer eigenen nationalen Herkunft! Kämpft konsequent und geschlossen gegen den Hindu-Chauvinismus, egal ob er sich gegen Dalits, Muslime, Frauen oder andere Unterdrückte zeigt!

 

* Für die Bildung von Frauenkommissionen in allen Bewegungen und Organen der Unterdrückten Indiens! Sexismus und Vergewaltigungen wie jede andere Gewalt gegen Frauen muss gerade auch in den Reihen unserer eigenen Bewegungen systematisch bekämpft werden! Für regelmäßige Treffen von Frauen in den Stadtteilen, den Dörfern, an Arbeitsplatz und Schule, um offen über alle Formen der Frauenunterdrückung sprechen zu können und sich gemeinsam dagegen organisieren zu können!

 

* Arbeiterinnen, holt euch zusammen mit euren Klassenbrüdern die Kontrolle in den Fabriken und Betrieben! Eintägige Generalstreiks sind nicht genug – für einen unbegrenzten Generalstreik bishin zur Enteignung und Entmachtung der herrschenden Klasse durch eine proletarische Revolution! Schafft die Freihandelszonen ab und kämpft geschlossen um die Verstaatlichung der imperialistischen Konzerne unter Kontrolle der Beschäftigten!

 

* Frauen in den Dörfern – kämpft zusammen mit euren Dalit-Brüdern für die Kontrolle über die Dorfgerichte! Diese lokalen, demokratischen Organe müssen unter Kontrolle der Unterdrückten gestellt werden in Zusammenarbeit mit der ArbeiterInnenbewegung Indiens!

 

* Baut die Gulabi Gang systematisch aus zu einer landesweiten Massenbewegung der Arbeiterinnen und armen Frauen in enger Verbindung mit der Bewegung der Dalit, der Muslime und anderer Unterdrückter sowie der ArbeiterInnenbewegung! Kämpft für eine revolutionäre Führung in der Gulabi Gang, der Frauenbewegung und jeder Bewegung von Unterdrückten und den Aufbau der mit diesen Bewegungen verbundenen revolutionären Partei!

 

Der Kampf unserer Schwestern im übrigen asiatischen Raum

 

Hat der Kampf unserer Schwestern in Indien besonders entwickelte Züge, so sind unsere Schwestern in anderen Teilen Asiens in keinster Weise weniger bedeutend für die Befreiung der Frauen der ArbeiterInnenklasse, der armen Bauernschaft wie aller Armen von Stadt und Land. Seien es die hunderttausende Fabriksarbeiterinnen umfassenden Arbeitskämpfe der Textilbranche Kambodscha und vorallem der Provinz Phnom Penh. Seien es die Kämpfe des chinesischen Proletariats, in dem gerade unter den ärmsten Schichten und inzwischen auch den WanderarbeiterInnen der Anteil der Frauen überwiegt. Seien es Hungerstreiks der Arbeiterinnen und Arbeiter Indonesiens die neben immens großen Massenstreiks in den letzten Jahren den Kampfgeist der indonesischen ArbeiterInnenklasse und dabei auch gerade der proletarischen Frauen zeigte. Ähnlich den Kämpfen unserer Schwestern in Indien ist ein wichtiger Bestandteil des Kampfes unserer Schwestern in Gesamtasien der Kampf gegen die imperialistische Bestie, die neben den USA, Russland, den imperialistischen Bestien Europas und anderer auch die regionalen Imperialisten Japan, China und Südkorea beinhaltet.

 

* Kampf der imperialistischen Bestie! Das mächtige Proletariat Asiens hat besondere Bedeutung für den internationalen Klassenkampf! Sie kann ein siegreicher Vorreiter in der Enteignung der zahlreichen imperialistischen Konzerne unter Kontrolle der Arbeiterschaft werden und damit zum Vorbild aller ArbeiterInnen weltweit!

 

* Führt den Kampf um eine revolutionäre Führung der Gewerkschaften sowie aller Organe der ArbeiterInnenbewegung! Ersetzt die gelben Gewerkschaften durch reale Kampforgane unserer Klasse!

 

* Das Proletariat Asiens hat Millionen in ein bzw. mehrtägigen Generalstreiks organisiert! Es ist höchste Zeit für unbefristete Generalstreiks, die letztlich den bewaffneten Aufstand des Proletariats einläuten!

 

Der Kampf des mächtigen asiatischen Proletariats ist dabei unbedingt mit dem Kampf der armen Bäuerinnen und Bauern Asiens zu verbinden sowie der Landlosen. Auch wenn in weiten Teilen Asiens das Proletariat deutlich entwickelter, organisierter und numerisch größer ist als beispielsweise in Schwarzafrika ist die Landfrage auch hier von großer Bedeutung. Tatsächlich wird die proletarische Revolution im asiatischen Raum wie international unbedingt die Unterstützung der armen Bauernschaft sowie allgemein der Armen von Stadt und Land brauchen. Der Aufbau der revolutionären Frauenbewegung hat zwar unter politischer Führung der Proletarierinnen zu stehen, muss aber in seiner Masse ebenso die Frauen der anderen unterdrückten Klassen bzw. Schichten in ihren Reihen organisieren. Um das zu ermöglichen ist der Kampf für ein öffentliches Beschäftigungsprogramm im Dienste der Armen sowie der Kampf um das Recht auf Land für die arme Bauernschaft ein untrennbarer Bestandteil der revolutionären Strategie jeder Befreiungsbewegung, sowie unter anderem der revolutionären Frauenbewegung.

 

Unsere Schwestern in Lateinamerika

 

In Lateinamerika gibt es eine lange Tradition der Frauenbewegung, die sich gegen den Machismo richtet. Wir sehen regelmäßig schon seit Jahren Großdemonstrationen unserer Schwestern, die ein Ausdruck des lebendigen tagtäglichen Kampfes unserer Schwestern gegen Sexismus und Frauenunterdrückung sind. Gerade der Kampf gegen Frauenmorde, die sogenannten Femizide, stehen bei den Demonstrationen im Vordergrund. In Argentinien sind zahlreiche Aktionen unter dem Motto „Ni una menos“ (Nicht eine weniger) gesetzt worden. Dieses Motto ist zum Schlachtruf der Frauenbewegung Argentiniens und inzwischen auch Perus geworden. In Buenos Aires haben im Juni 2015 mehr als 200.000 Frauen gegen Femizide demonstriert.

 

In Lima sind im August 2016 mehr als 50.000 unserer Schwestern gegen Gewalt an Frauen auf die Straße gegangen und in ganz Peru sogar 150.000. Im Schnitt wird jeden Tag ein Femizid an einer Frau in Peru versucht, an jedem dritten Tag kommt dabei eine unserer Schwestern wirklich zu Tode. Bei unseren Schwestern in Argentinien sind es sogar eine ermordete Frau alle 30 Stunden! Unsere Schwestern in Argentinien haben daher auch im Oktober 2016 eine Großdemonstration sowie einen einstündigen Streik gegen die Frauenmorde abgehalten, während auch in zahlreichen anderen Ländern zeitgleich Demonstrationen stattfanden – darunter Mexiko, Bolivien, Chile, El Salvador, Paraguai und Uruguai. In La Paz (Bolivien) haben sich auch indigene Frauen der Aymara den Protest angeschlossen. In Chile sollen in der Hauptstadt Santiago und darüberhinaus 25.000 Frauen demonstriert haben. Gerade bei diesen landesübergreifenden Protest im Oktober 2016 wurde eine der getöteten Schwestern zur Symbolfigur: die 16-jährige Lucia Perez, die vor ihrer Ermordung unter Drogen gesetzt und vergewaltigt worden war.

 

Der Kampf gegen den Machismo ist für unsere Schwestern in Lateinamerika im wahrsten Sinn des Wortes ein Kampf auf Leben und Tod. Die aktuelle Bewegung der „Ni una menos“ darf in diesem Kampf nicht der Höhepunkt sondern muss erst der Anfang des Widerstandes gegen Machismo und Femizid sein. Für unsere Schwestern gilt es „Ni una menos“ zur Wirklichkeit zu machen. Dazu reichen einfache Demonstrationen und kurze Streiks nicht aus! Im Gedenken an alle gefallenen Schwestern wie Lucia Perez müssen die Frauen in Lateinamerika kämpfen für:

 

* Aufbau von Selbstverteidigungseinheiten der Frauen, unterstützt von der ArbeiterInnenbewegung und allen fortschrittlichen Organisationen!

 

* Für ArbeiterInnentribunale um in jedem einzelnen Fall des Femizid, sowohl der versuchten als auch der durchgeführten, über die Täter zu richten. Solche ArbeiterInnentribunale werden von der ArbeiterInnenbewegung und vorallem auch der proletarischen Frauenbewegung gestellt.

 

* Es ist höchste Zeit für Solidaritätsaktionen von Seiten der gesamten ArbeiterInnenbewegung sowie einer Aufklärungskampagne gegen Gewalt. Unsere proletarischen Brüder müssen alles dransetzen die Bewegung im Kampf gegen Machismo und Femizid mit aller Kraft zu unterstützen!

 

* Für die Schaffung von Frauenkommissionen innerhalb der ArbeiterInnenbewegung, die den Sexismus in den eigenen Reihen bekämpft!

 

* Für eine revolutionäre, proletarische Frauenbewegung, die den Kampf gegen Machismo und Femizid in den einzelnen Ländern Lateinamerikas zusammenführt und die gesamte Region erfasst!

 

Für eine revolutionäre, internationale Frauenbewegung

 

Die bisher genannten Regionen der Welt und die Kämpfe unserer Klassenschwestern und -brüder sind nur eine Auswahl an Brennpunkten, die entscheidend sind für das gesamte weibliche Proletariat sowie der Frauen der armen Bauernschaft und der städtischen und ländlichen Armut. Die bisher genannten Losungen sind nur ein Bruchteil des revolutionären Programms, das auch die Grundlage der internationalen, revolutionären Frauenbewegung sein muss! Eine solche internationale, revolutionäre Frauenbewegung muss mit den Kämpfen anderer Befreiungsbewegungen verschmelzen sowie das weibliche Proletariat in Wirklichkeit schon durchzogen ist von den Kämpfen der Halbkolonien, der rassisch, ethnisch und national Unterdrückten Massen in verschiedenen Teilen der Welt und der Milliarden von Armen. Wir setzen der bürgerlichen und kleinbürgerlichen Frauenbewegung, die von einer klassenunabhängigen Einheit aller Frauen spricht die Einheit unserer Klasse und aller Unterdrückten entgegen! Die Existenz der Frauenunterdrückung ist an das Klassensystem gebunden, dass die bürgerlichen und kleinbürgerlichen Feministinnen direkt oder indirekt verteidigen. Bis auf unser biologisches Geschlecht HABEN wir mit den bürgerlichen Feministinnen nichts gemein und wir WOLLEN auch keine weiteren Gemeinsamkeiten mit ihnen haben. Ebenso bekämpfen wir all jene kleinbürgerlichen Feministinnen, die sich im Dienste dieser bürgerlichen Kräfte stellen. All jene kleinbürgerlichen Feministinnen, die aktiv verbunden sind mit den unterdrückten Volksmassen bzw. in fortschrittlichen Kämpfe dieser Unterdrückten aktiv sind, wollen wir für einen konsequenten Bruch mit ihrer nicht-revolutionären Politik gewinnen. Letztlich kann ein ehrlicher Wunsch nach Befreiung der Frau wie aller Unterdrückter nur auf revolutionärer, proletarisch geführter Grundlage in die Realität umgesetzt werden! Neben den schon genannten Schwerpunkten gehört zu einem revolutionär-proletarischen Programm zur Befreiung der Frau unter anderem auch:

 

* Vergesellschaftung der Hausarbeit und der Kinderbetreuung! Schaffung von qualitativ hochwertigen und kostenlosen Einrichtungen wie Waschküchen, Kantinen, Kinderkrippen und anderen!

 

* Konsequenter Kampf gegen Gewalt an Frauen! Für Selbstverteidigungseinheiten von Frauen um sich gemeinsam gegen Gewalt wehren zu können! Für flächendeckende, selbstverwaltete Frauenhäuser zum Schutz betroffener Frauen und deren Kinder! Für Aufklärungskampagnen der ArbeiterInnenbewegung und aller Bewegungen der Unterdrückten gegen Gewalt an Frauen!

 

* Gleicher Lohn für gleiche Arbeit!

 

* Das Land der armen Bauernschaft mit voller Gleichberechtigung in allen Bereichen für die armen Bäuerinnen!

 

* Krieg der imperialistischen Bestie, die es überall wo sie ihren Kopf erhebt zu schlagen gilt! Für die Befreiung der Halbkolonien aus dem imperialistischen Joch der Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung! Für den Sieg halbkolonialer Befreiungsbewegungen gegen die Imperialisten!

 

Die revolutionäre, internationale Frauenbewegung ist die Einheit aller Klassenschwestern mit allen Unterdrückten jeglichen Geschlechts, Alters, Nationalität oder anderer im Verhältnis zu den Gemeinsamkeiten letztlich oberflächlicher Unterschiede! Sie setzt sich nicht nur den erfolgreichen Aufbau ihrer eigenen Bewegung zum Ziel, sondern die aktive Teilnahme und Unterstützung am Aufbau aller Befreiungsbewegungen der Unterdrückten, der ArbeiterInnenbewegung sowie dem Aufbau der revolutionären Weltpartei! An die Elfenbeinturm-Feministinnen, die dem Gender-Mainstreaming und der Sprache die Schaffung des Bewusstseins und der Wirklichkeit andichten: Wir, die Arbeiterinnen – zusammen mit unseren Klassenbrüdern und allen Unterdrückten – schaffen das Bewusstsein und die Realität durch unsere TATEN! Nicht ihr, durch euer Sinnieren über die Bedeutung akademischer Begriffe. Ihr werdet bald in Vergessenheit geraten.

 

Doch unsere Taten werden jede Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung davonfegen und nicht nur unser Geschlecht, sondern die gesamten Menschheit befreien! Wir werden in Zukunft die glorreichen Heroinen der Menschheitsgeschichte sein, die dem Kapitalismus und dem Imperialismus, der Klassengesellschaft, der Armut und dem Elend den Todesstoß der Geschichte versetzt haben!

 

by Almedina Gunić, Revolutionary Communist Organization LIBERATION (Austrian Section of the RCIT), April 2016, www.rkob.net

 

We live in the era of imperialism. This means that some very rich countries accumulate vast wealth through the exploitation and oppression of the population of the poor countries of the world. These very rich, imperialist countries are, among other things, characterized by their incessant military activity. This includes not only their leading imperialist wars fought in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, and Chad; it also involves their repeated military interventions and the permanent stationing of their soldiers, or those of “allied” lackey regimes, in poor semi-colonial countries. When deployed in the semi-colonies these combat forces and "auxiliaries" are inarguably serving the interests of the exploitive ruling classes of the imperialist countries; thus, in this capacity, the soldiers have a very definite, exploitive role model to follow. As a result, the behavior of these troops towards the poor and oppressed is often deplorable. No wonder, then that, among other forms of aggression, acts of rape of the local population by these soldiers is on the agenda; so much so that, among the world's oppressed semi-colonies, UN peacekeepers have a gained a not unjustified reputation as rapists. Last year more than 200 cases of rape by such UN peacekeepers were reported in Haiti. The victims were largely underage women who received no medication, baby food, food for themselves, or other vital resources after having been raped by UN soldiers.

 

In early March of this year, a report was published about rape by UN “peacekeeping” forces in 21 countries around the world. The statistics cited in the report are probably just the tip of the iceberg, as there are more than 125,000 such soldiers deployed worldwide. The victims of rape committed by these forces only rarely get the opportunity to officially complain about these crimes, let alone actually see their assailants prosecuted. In addition, the soldiers often frustrate attempts to prosecute them for rape, by seeing to it that their actions are perceived as "consensual" sex. They do this by giving their victims “gifts” after the act. Indeed, there are some young women who, in their economic misery and desperation, actually agree in advance to the solders’ advances in order to obtain vital resources; but in the overall context of imperialism, this  can hardly be considered "consensual sex." By analogy, if I were to commit a robbery, and the victim of this offense were to catch up to me, if I held a pistol to the perpetrators temple and threaten him lest he give me "permission" for my taking of his money or property, this is by no means a valid example of barter. No, it’s robbery. However, it’s accurate to say that investigations by the authorities into acts of rape allegedly conducted by peacekeeping soldiers are designed in advance to confirm them as cases of consensual sex. This demonstrates, once again, how little faith we should put in Civil Justice when it comes to the victimization of the oppressed and exploited.

 

The Revolutionary Communist Organization LIBERATION call for:

* For the immediate expulsion of all UN peacekeepers and all other official military units and alleged "auxiliaries" of the imperialist countries of the EU, USA, Japan, Russia, China, etc. from the Congo, Haiti, Kosovo and all other semi-colonial countries!

* For trial by jury selected from among the ranks of those affected, the oppressed and the workers' movements, to pass judgment in rape cases involving “peacekeeping” perpetrators!

* For the creation of self-defense units for women, supported by workers' movements and all progressive organizations, to actively defend themselves against rape and to put an end to imperialist peacekeepers’ sexual attacks!

 

Declaration for 8 March 2016 – International Day of Women Workers

by Almedina Gunić, International Women's Secretary of Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

1.            Day by day, we women shape the world in which we live, through our work and through our struggles. We do so as working women in China, by the millions, in factories of companies, performing our daily tasks, constituting a huge portion of the global working class. At the same time we strike with iron resolve as factory workers in the struggle against exploitation in Cambodia, organizing by the hundreds of thousands for higher wages, for the establishment of trade unions, and for our equality as women against the oppression of the factory and against the brutal police. We are the heroines of the struggle against inhuman dictatorships like that of al-Sisi in Egypt and Assad in Syria. We are the spearhead of the struggle against imperialism and its consequences. For all what we are we are persecuted and punished every day. For a decade now, we are attacked in Mexico, often raped, murdered and buried in the desert. We are persecuted as fighters against the government in Burundi, robbed of our lives in the dark of night. We are fearsome warriors in the eyes of the apartheid state of Israel, imprisoned only because we raise a hand against the inhuman oppression of our Palestinian people. We are the nightmare of the ruling classes around the world, the Furies who cannot be bound as much as they try. We cannot be defeated and will not break whatever the class enemy might do. We are the morning, bringing the light to our oppressed brothers who are fighting, as workers and as the poor, in towns and in the country, against exploitation and oppression. For them, we are not and never will be Furies, but rather examples. All that we are throughout the entire year, Sisters, we recall as members of the RCIT on March 8.

 

2.            The core of the global working class is shifting more and more to the east and south. The emerging factory towns throughout the Asian continent resemble similar developments in the 19th century Europe and America. In China, our sisters live in miniscule, confined spaces, dozens of bunk beds crammed into a room with a small stove being the pinnacle of luxury. Many of these women are migrant workers, separated almost all the year round from their families. From early morning until late at night, they are the wage slaves of corporations. Most spend their entire day working at a piece rate. In addition to immediate improvements, such as replacing the piece rate with a decent hourly wage, and the ability to organize in a union, we are struggling with our sisters for the expropriation of the factories, their placement under public ownership and their control by the workers; in particular in the case of factories which have been closed or are facing closure. Our sisters in China have played a central role in numerous strikes in the past, especially in the province of Guangdon, where 30% of China’s exports are produced in countless factories almost exclusively staffed by a female workforce. But, in addition to the appalling conditions in which they work, our sisters are also forced to fight daily against sexual assault, so prevalent in the workplace. Surveys conducted in the third largest city in China, Guangzhou, reveal that at least 70% of women workers regularly suffer sexual assault. Therefore, the fight of our sisters in their workplaces is not only against their demeaning exploitation as workers, but also as victims of sexual violence and intimidation. The present and the future of the global class struggle are directly and significantly influenced by the working class women of China. Thus, the building of a worldwide revolutionary women’s movement will depend to a great extent on our Chinese sisters.

 

3.            The struggles of our sisters in Cambodia are inferior in nothing to those of our sisters in China. The heroic commitment of women workers of Cambodia to the establishment of independent trade unions and their struggle for increases in wages have already been a model for a number of years. In the province of Phnom Penh, our class sisters have led an enormous labor strike overwhelming composed of women, who account for nearly 90% of the textile workers there. Throughout the country, supporting strikes have included hundreds of thousands of workers. While the bourgeois Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) has been supportive of the strikes, the former Stalinist, bourgeois party Cambodian People's Party (CPP), which has been in power for more than three decades, has been instrumental in attempting to crush them with brutal force by the police, and has at times even called in the military. Even with the CNRP’s official favoring of the strike, they have cynically tried to use it for their own ends, and thus a central task of our sisters in Cambodia is to fight for the independence of the trade unions from these bourgeois parties. This can only be done by our heroic sisters’ building a revolutionary workers' party. In this way, the labor disputes can be extended and augmented with creation of self-defense units against the violence of the regime, towards the calling of a general strike, and the beginning of a revolutionary uprising against the capitalist government under the leadership of the new revolutionary party. Our sisters have already achieved much in the course of their recent struggles. With much spilt blood and many deaths, our sisters, who fought alongside their class brothers, have forced the government to increase the minimum wage. However this, in turn, brought many corporations to leave the country and relocate their production facilities, demonstrating that the sole aim of the imperialist parasites it to bleed the country and to leave it at the earliest possible opportunity. Only a victorious armed struggle and the forming of a socialist workers and peasant government can stop this by expropriating the factories and placing them under control of the workers. It is the task of the international labor movement to call for solidarity strikes with our sisters and brothers in Cambodia, in order to help bring about the expropriation of the corporations and put their factories under control of all the workers.

 

4.            The migration of companies from Cambodia and other parts of the Asia is closely linked with the construction of new factories on the African continent. With the emergence of Russia and China as new imperialist powers, intense competition has emerged among all the imperialist powers, both East and West. China, in particular, began years ago investing in impoverished, sub-Saharan Africa and is now the largest investor there. Based on China’s own experience, it was clear to these new imperialists that the younger proletariat in Asia can also organize rapidly and thereby cut into Chinese profits. Accordingly, China established a foothold in many other countries, like Ethiopia, with the aim of developing the economic powerhouse of Africa for their own profit. In Ethiopia, wage costs are minimal even compared with those of China, at times constituting only 10% of what the Chinese capitalists would have to pay to workers in their own homeland. Naturally, very little Chinese capital is invested in safety for the Ethiopian workers. As a result, almost 30% of Ethiopian textile factory workers are injured by machinery in the course of their working lives, while an additional 20% are hurt in other ways in the workplace. At the same time, the very young Ethiopian proletariat is historically unused to the new relations of imperialist exploitation, and the physical capacity of workers there averages 8 hours per day, while the Chinese capitalists are accustomed by to getting 11 hours of work per day out of their workers at home. Consequently, Ethiopian workers are drilled and harassed by their foreign bosses. Still, given the mass unemployment and poverty in Ethiopia, factory jobs are highly sought after. To make matters worse, the country of our Ethiopian sisters and brothers is currently suffering from the worst drought in 50 years, one which, by mid–year, is expected to affect 15 million persons. When there was a severe drought in the country 30 years ago, a million people died. But that drought was nothing compared to the present one. Added to all this, Ethiopia pays exorbitant interest on its foreign debts to the imperialist states. Therefore, in full solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Ethiopia, as well as those across the African continent, and in all semi-colonies around the world, we call for an immediate and full cancellation of all debt! In addition, we call upon the international labor movement to organize immediate humanitarian aid for drought-stricken Ethiopia. It is yet just another perversion of imperialism that our class brothers and sisters must die from thirst while, in some countries, drinking water is used to flush toilets!

 

5.            In addition to the torment of exploitation fomented by the imperialists in the factories, the human suffering due to the problems caused by increasing climate change and environmental disasters (which are ultimately the responsibility of the Number 1 polluters, namely the multinationals), our sisters in Africa are also suppressed because of their sex. In Burundi, every day opponents of the current government are abducted, killed and their corpses are left lying somewhere. Women are often brutally raped beforehand. Rape, in addition to other forms of sexual violence, is a special burden that is imposed on us women against our wills. And it’s not only our sisters in Burundi who are suffering.

 

6.            Gang rape of women in India regularly takes place and these crimes are so dramatic in their brutality that they often lead to death of the victim. There is hardly a woman of lower classes in India who has not suffered rape during her lifetime. However, the mainstream media have only begun to show indignation in recent years, making the phenomena known to the public following rapes directed against wealthy women. But long before their widespread report, our Indian sisters began to organize. They have shown us what self-defense units can actually look like, and they have become ubiquitous; like the Gulabi Gang (Pink Saris) which was created ten years ago and was founded by the then 45-year old Sambat Pal Devi, a member of the lowest caste. Since then more than 150,000 women have joined this self-defense unit! Our militant sisters, have adopted pink for the color of their garments, because none of the previously existing parties had claimed that color for itself. The independence of the self-defense units from all the bourgeois parties is an important and correct approach taken by our Indian sisters. Since Sambat Pal Devi has become a supporter of the Congress Party, it is said that this has led to a split in the movement. The Pink Saris arm themselves with iron-tipped sticks, called Lathi, not only against rapists, but also against corrupt policemen and members of higher castes that exhibit violence towards members of lower castes. They are also fighting for their own movement’s independence from bourgeois influence, and are supported by poor women in cities and rural areas. These are the women who have become the heart and soul of a new revolutionary party in India. Without such a party, in the long run the movement cannot possibly implement its self-proclaimed political goal: Stopping any injustice against the poor and weak.

 

7.            The movement of the Gulabi Gang demonstrates the potential for building a revolutionary women's movement in India. But it could also serve as a shining example for our sisters in today’s Mexico. For a decade now, they have experienced a growing wave of violence and murder. Women are kidnapped, raped and often dumped dead in the middle of the desert. Many of the surviving victims recover only after a very long time. This murderous violence against women, in this particularly heinous form, must be stopped immediately. Self-defense groups for our sisters in Mexico, like that of the Pink Saris in India, could be a lifesaver. In addition, every case of rape or other form of physical and sexual violence against any woman must be thoroughly investigated and solved. A jury, consisting of representatives of the workers' movement and the persons concerned must address each such incident, with the goal of bring the perpetrators to justice. Our victimized sisters and their families should be given the option of restorative justice for the atrocities they have suffered.

 

8.            "Ni una Menos!" ("Not one less!") is the slogan called out by hundreds of thousands of our sisters in mass demonstrations against femicide in Argentina. In May 2015, a 14-year old woman was brutally murdered, as happens to hundreds of other women each year in Argentina. As in Mexico, our sisters in Argentina have bitter experience with brute force, often resulting in femicide. Death at the hands of the partner or by family members and friends is a particularly common form of femicide in Latin America. Every one of our sisters must be protected against such cruelty. In every neighborhood, in every village, in the workplace and educational institutions, women must have the ability to conduct meetings. The cohesion and mutual protection thus created, the awareness and the timely warnings of violence in the immediate environment can literally save hundreds of lives!

 

9.            However, the worst killers of us women are by far the major imperialist powers and their stooges, the dictatorships. Our heroic sisters in Egypt are fighting relentlessly against the brutal dictatorship of General al-Sisi, which sends even small children to trial. This dictatorship was inaugurated in a coup on July 3, 2013, and was hailed by the US and the imperialist countries of the EU. A month later, an incomprehensible massacre was perpetrated by the military dictatorship, in which in a single day, more than 3,000 of our brothers and sisters were slaughtered. Tens of thousands of people are suffering torture and humiliation in the prisons of the military regime and are usually judged in summary proceedings. In show trials conducted in the course of a single day, hundreds of people were sentenced to death, sometimes without even having had the opportunity to consult with a lawyer. Yet, for this dictator and mass murderer, al-Sisi, the imperialist powers have rolled out the red carpet. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel met with al-Sisi and his delegation last year in Berlin. While our sisters were rotting in the prisons of the Egyptian regime, those who had not already lost their lives in the struggle against the dictatorship, Angela Merkel courted the mass murderer al-Sisi! At the same time, someone like Alice Schwarzer, a leading representative of bourgeois feminism, makes statements against immigrants and Muslims and plays right into the hands of the racist PEGIDA movement. What striking examples of middle class, iconic women, “epitomes of feminism,” who have absolutely nothing at all to do with the real interests of women! What excellent examples of how little feminism has to do with women's liberation! The Angela Merkels and Alice Schwarzers of the world are one with the mass murderers in the world! They are, therefore, not our sisters, but the greatest enemies of us working women!

 

10.          Just as our sisters in Egypt heroically fight against the dictatorship of al-Sisi, so our sisters in Syria are fighting against the dictator Assad. Yet they are forced to simultaneously fight the imperialist intervention by Russia and its Iranian henchmen on the one hand, and the US and the EU and their stooges on the other, if in the end they do not want to lose their home to the imperialist predators.

 

11.          No list of heroic anti-imperialist struggles would be complete without mentioning our sisters in Palestine. More and more of our sisters are actively organizing in the resistance against the apartheid state of Israel. The vital Third Intifada cannot be set in motion without their courageous efforts! They are the brightest models in a relentless struggle for justice and freedom, in the struggle for a free, red Palestine!

 

12.          On this March 8 we recall each of the heroic struggles of all our sisters worldwide. We remember the history of March 8 as a day of battle, which began in the self-sacrificing struggle of working women more than 100 years ago. We remember the fighters and all those sisters who are today oppressed and exploited. Like the millions of fleeing persons looking for a new home in Europe. We want to open the gates to them, shout out support for them, and welcome them. We intend to do so not only today, but fight even more resolutely for this tomorrow. Against exploitation in the factories, suffered by our sisters in China, Cambodia and around the world; Against the brutal apartheid, suffered by our Palestinian sisters at the hands of the imperialist state of Israel; Against the beast of imperialism that exploits not only us working women, in city and country, but also our class brothers every day; Against murderous racism, not only against refugees and migrants but also against our black brothers and sisters in the US and elsewhere; Against the war machine of the imperialists whose economies and greed pave the path to our subjugation by crushing our bodies. Our history is one of struggle, and so is our present. We will yet retrieve every tear, every drop of sweat and blood. We will fight for a future in which the exploitation and oppression is nothing but a shadow of the past; a future in which capitalism and its final stage, imperialism, is nothing but a chapter in the book of history; a future in which our children's children will proudly speak of the revolutionaries, women and men, who together moved forward to build a world revolutionary party and courageously stood up to the imperialist beast; who organized the greatest event in the history of mankind – the world socialist revolution; those who gave humankind a future of socialism in which we women are free at last.

 

Almedina Gunić, International Women's Secretary of the RCIT (Revolutionary Communist International Tendency), sends greetings to all women who fight for their rights and the rights of all oppressed. Let's make March 8th a day of struggle for all working class and poor women around the world!

 

Listen to the Video Statement of Almedina Gunić here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyCNkZtuAW4

 

Call for the international day of struggle of working women on 8 March

By Nina Gunić, International Women's Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 7.3.2015, www.thecommunists.net

 

1.            The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) sends its greetings to all fighters for the liberation of women who are oppressed by class society and imperialism. On this particular day, the international day of struggle of the working woman on 8 March, we commemorate the heroic pioneers of women's liberation. We remember the murdered women textile workers who were detained on 8 March 1908 during a strike in a New York cotton textile factory by their employer who were miserably burned alive after he set the building on fire. Their heroic strike against the exploitation by the capitalists, in which 129 of them paid with their lives, has been honored every year on the 8 March for 106 years now. (The same horrible fate befell 146 women workers from the New Yorker factory Triangle Shirtwaist in March 1911.) Likewise, we commemorate the work of Clara Zetkin, the communist leader and pioneer of women's rights. It was she who advocated the example of US female workers who fought on 8 March 1909, one year after the murder of the 129 heroines, with mass demonstrations and strikes for the rights of women. Thanks to Clara Zetkin these demonstrations have become an international event annually since 1911. We hold high the banner of the proletarian women's movement, which was Zetkin’s life's work. This bright banner must still be carried to the farthest corners of the world to help all our class sisters to engage in struggle against oppression and exploitation.

2.            The RCIT greets the combatants, who courageously encounter the imperialist beast worldwide. The super-exploitation in semi-colonial countries, which is based on the role of monopolies in the world economy and their constant pursuit of profit, shapes the lives of billions of the oppressed in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, wider parts of Asia as well as Eastern Europe. A tiny minority of the largest 147 multinational corporations control 40% of the world economy and if one takes the 737 most powerful monopolies, they have 80% of the wealth in their hands. They exploit at breathtaking speed the people of the semi-colonies, especially women. Their life is full of deprivation; working-class women are often expected – after a 15-hour average workday, which includes violence and rape by the masters of the factories – to look after their families. The poor female peasants and female urban poor are suffering from starvation while they work to increase even more the profits for the corporate bosses and landlords. On top of all this we have to add the wars of the great powers which annihilate the hopes of women for a better future, let alone for real freedom and equality. But the brutal oppression and exploitation of women cannot prevent millions of them engaging in heroic resistance against their imperialist masters.

3.            Female factory workers fought heroically in the past year in many parts of the world. The female workers of the Taiwanese shoe factory Yue Yuen, 70% of them women, went on strike for more than two weeks for a fair wage and improved working conditions. These 40,000 employees in the Chinese industrial city of Dongguan are terribly exploited by piece work for minimum wages. At the beginning of the strike these female workers had no trade union organization. Their heroic struggle against the CEOs of Nike, Adidas and other powerful corporations produced severe problems for their capitalist masters. Like their class brothers and especially class sisters in Cambodia, they faced not only the factory owners but the entire capitalist government in their country as class enemies. In Cambodia 39 female workers were arrested and five of them were executed by the military police. In Cambodia amongst the 600,000 textile workers, 90% of which are women, thousands have gone on strike against declining wages. These low wages made Cambodia a target for imperialist corporations, many of whom also come from China. Working-class women have stood up bravely against the corporate bosses, demanding the right to organize, higher wages and better protection against the toxic fumes that make them unconscious and ill. They fought street battles with Cambodia’s military police and many have been arrested in Dongguan. These are just a few of the countless heroic proletarian fighters worldwide.

4.            The poor female peasants also fought heroically in the past year against the increasing land grab that is taking place now not only by big landowners but also by multinational corporations. In Liberia, women and men of the Jogbahn clan have successfully fought to keep the British palm oil company Equatorial Palm Oil from grabbing their land. This demonstrated once more that the interests of the working women and poor women peasants have nothing in common with the interest of bourgeois women. After all, it is the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has brought these same multinationals into the country for a number of years. Equally impressive are the Brazilian Indians, such as the Guarani, who try to fight against land grabs. Their spokeswoman, Marinalva Manoel, was raped and murdered because her voice had become too loud and her campaign too successful. These are just two of the many examples of heroic resistance struggle of the poor peasants worldwide.

5.            Women fought heroically with arms in hands in the past year as part of the various resistance movements that oppose dictatorships and imperialist interventions. The women of Gaza, who are organizing as combatants in Hamas and other resistance organizations, have shown unwavering courage in their struggle against the overpowering apartheid state of Israel in the bloody war of extermination last summer, 2014. Fighters such as Um Jafar and Guevara are known female faces of the rebels in Syria, who oppose the dictatorship of Assad. More and more women are joining the rebel units, including the militia of the "Saut al-Hak" ("Voice of Justice"). Around the world, more and more women join anti-imperialist liberation movements.

6.            The increasing participation of women of the oppressed classes in the liberation struggle is also the reason why reactionary regime and imperialist states are trying more and more to attract women to their cause (e.g. Assad's so called "Lionesses" or Israel's female soldiers). Thus our enemies hope to counterbalance the great popularity of the liberation struggle amongst the female part of the oppressed peoples. Whether female thugs in the service of the rulers, women in company boardrooms, at the top of racist movements or even of a corrupt regime – they are nothing but enemies of every class-conscious worker and oppressed woman. This is not altered by the fact that some of these enemies of real women's liberation fighters call themselves “feminists”.

7.            The RCIT stands for the real liberation struggle against the oppression of all women, which is united with the struggle against capitalism and the imperialism. This real liberation struggle is led by the proletarian women and men in the world and is based on the oppressed masses. The movement, which can be generally grouped under the term feminism, consists of only two camps which are opposed to the interests of the proletariat: the camp of the bourgeois women's movement and the camp of the petty-bourgeois women's movement. Both of them are, in different ways, obstacles on the road of the authentic liberation struggle.

8.            Bourgeois feminism is a great enemy of real women's liberation. It put itself at the service of imperialism early on in its history. The suffragettes were the most radical current in the bourgeois women's movement. They carried out suicide attacks to draw attention to their concerns. But when the imperialist First World War began in 1914, they became enthusiastic defenders of their imperialist homeland and were willingly enlisted to support the imperialist war. Today middle-class feminists like Alice Schwarzer in Germany, who has expressed sympathy for the racist PEGIDA demonstrations and who is a long-standing supporter of imperialist wars and occupations against the alleged "Islamist threat", stand in this tradition. These bourgeois feminists have also welcomed the pro-imperialist mobilizations after the attacks on the racist French magazine Charlie Hebdo. They regularly justify imperialist wars and occupations – which take place e.g. in Afghanistan and Iraq – using the “argument” of the women’s liberation to support the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria. They are camouflaging their service for the imperialists with claims that it is in the interest of the entire female gender. This is nothing more than an appeal to working-class women and other oppressed to betray their own class interests in order – as it is demonstrated by the bourgeois women's movement – to serve the imperialist powers.

9.            Petty bourgeois feminism is not the fight for real women's liberation. It currently often stands at the forefront of mass mobilization of oppressed women – such as the urban poor, the rural poverty and many workers – in India and in several Latin American countries. But it shrinks from a real break with the ruling class and their capitalist system. Petty-bourgeois feminists often try to collaborate with representatives of the bourgeois women's movement. It is therefore a potential gateway for these reactionary elements in the mass movements of the oppressed. In Chile a strengthened petty-bourgeois women's movement has opened the road for a number of bourgeois women to get positions within the government apparatus. This government has – contrary to the original demands of the petty-bourgeois women's movement – only recently decided to disburse family subsidies only to women who are prepared to undergo regularly gynecological examinations. In India too, petty bourgeois feminists were at the forefront during the mass protests against gang rape. As in the past, one of their key demands is the expansion of the police force, which leads to an increasing repression of the oppressed classes. An ongoing project of petty-bourgeois feminists, for many years, is the so-called self-help groups for women who killed their daughters in need. These self-help groups are now transformed into control units that systematically denounce all women to the police, who do not admit to having killed their daughters. In the best case, petty-bourgeois feminists give support for female bourgeois careerists; at worst they are open supporters of the bourgeois apparatus of repression. Only the proletarian road of the revolutionary women's movement represents the interests of the oppressed women, and all other exploited and oppressed in the world. Such a revolutionary proletarian women's movement must therefore also be part of the struggle for a revolutionary new Fifth Workers' International, a world party of the proletariat and all the oppressed.

10.          The RCIT advocates the formation of such a world party, as well as for the construction of a revolutionary women's movement. We greet all female and male fighters for the liberation of women who are particularly oppressed in the class society and by imperialism and we urge them to join with us. Let us fight together for a revolutionary program for women's liberation!

 

For full equality in workplace:

* Equal pay for equal work! Massive support for the conversion of part-time to full-time employment for women!

* For a public employment programme to create the conditions for the socialisation of housework and simultaneously eliminate unemployment among women!

* For the formation of trade unions, especially for female workers in semi-colonial countries! Build women’s commissions in the unions to deal with the specific discrimination of women, both at work places as well as with sexism in the labor movement!

 

For full equality in the society:

* An end to all forms of legal discrimination against women - whether in the workplace, in access to education or at the polls!

* For the massive construction of free, well-equipped 24-hour child-care facilities! For a wide range supply of affordable and high-quality public restaurants and laundry facilities! Our goal is the socialisation of housework!

* Free access to free contraception and abortion on demand regardless of age and no matter in what month of pregnancy the woman is!

* Down with all laws and public campaigns on religious dress codes! For the right to wear religious clothing, independently whether it is a form of Muslim veiling, the Dastar of the Sikhs etc. is! But also against any compulsion to wear these garments!

 

Stop violence against women:

* Fight against violence against women! For the expansion of public women safe houses, controlled by women's organisations! For the formation of self-defence units by the workers' and women's movement against sexist violence!

* An end to the paternalism by the state and religious institutions: everyone should be able to realise his or her sexuality without coercion and regulations, as long as this takes place with the mutual consent of the partners.

* Complete equality for lesbian (as well as for gay and transgender people) in the marriage law, right to have children, the public showing of their affection, etc.!

* No criminalisation of the sexuality of young people by statutory age restrictions! However, we are in favour of strict laws against rape and domestic violence, to protect children from abuse. Domestic violence perpetrators should be held accountable by neighbourhood and school committees.

 

Consistent struggle against the imperialist beast and for the liberation of the semi-colonies:

* Expropriate the multi-national corporations which exploit the semi-colonial countries and put them under workers’ control! This particularly applies also to all factories (their "business partners"), which are nothing more than local stooges of such corporations. Therefore: Nationalisation of the imperialist banks and corporations under workers' control!

* For the formation of trade unions which, especially with the help of women’s commissions, disclose the crimes against women (rape, abuse, etc.) and fight against that!

* Cancel the debt of all semi-colonial countries of Latin America, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe! Instead, the imperialist states must compensate the semi-colonial world for the plundering of their natural and human resources! For workers’ tribunals in the semi-colonial countries that are supported by the international workers movement to identify the crimes of the corporations to the people in the semi-colonial countries as well as to the environment and to make their owners accountable!

* Smash the IMF and the World Bank!

* No to protectionism in the imperialist countries against the commodities of poorer countries! Abolition of the NAFTA and the EU's common agricultural policy and similar protectionist weapons of imperialism! On the other hand, however, we defend the right of ‘third world' countries to protect their markets from cheap imports from the imperialist countries.

* For an international emergency plan to rescue the starving and to fight against the consequences of climate change – funded from the profits of the banks and corporations in rich countries!

* Immediate ban on the purchase of land by multinational corporations and hedge funds! Immediate confiscation of all non-agriculturally used land owned by large landowners! Abolition of all patents of capitalist monopolies in agriculture!

* For the expropriation of the big landlords, the church and the multinationals! For the nationalisation of the land under the control of workers and poor peasants! The land to those who cultivate it! The local democratic actions council representatives of the poor and landless peasants have to decide the question of the allocation and use of the land! Promotion of voluntary agricultural cooperatives and the formation of larger state production units!

* Where the infrastructure of the semi-colonies is still too weak: formation of village collectives to share the childcare and housework and hence to enable women to full employment!

* Imperialist Great Powers: Hands off Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc! Victory to the resistance struggle! Immediate end to all wars and occupations, withdrawal of all troops (including so-called “humanitarian operations”) and dissolution of all local imperialist facilities! Against any form of interference – militarily, economically or politically!

 

Forward to the revolutionary world party! For the building of a revolutionary women's movement!

 

 

Aufruf zum internationalen Kampftag der Arbeiterfrauen am 8. März 2015

 

Von Nina Gunić, Internationale Frauensekretärin der Revolutionär-Kommunistischen Internationalen Tendenz (RCIT), 7.3.2015, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

1.            Die Revolutionär-Kommunistische Internationale Tendenz (RCIT) grüßt alle Kämpferinnen und Kämpfer für die Befreiung der von der Klassengesellschaft und dem Imperialismus besonders geknechteten Frau. An diesem besonderen Tag, dem internationalen Kampftag der Arbeiterfrau, dem 8. März, gedenken wir der heldenhaften Pionierinnen der Frauenbefreiung. Wir gedenken der ermordeten Textilarbeiterinnen, die während eines Streiks in einer New Yorker Fabrik für Baumwolltextilien am 8. März 1908 vom Unternehmer eingesperrt und, nachdem dieser Feuer legte, während des anschließenden Brandes elendig zugrunde gerichtet wurden. Ihr heldenhafter Streik gegen die Ausbeutung durch die Fabrikbesitzer, den 129 von ihnen mit ihren Leben bezahlten, wird durch jeden 8. März seit inzwischen 106 Jahren geehrt. (Dasselbe Schicksal ereilte 146 Arbeiterfrauen der ebenfalls in New York ansässigen Fabrik Triangle Shirtwaist im März des Jahres 1911.) Ebenso halten wir die Arbeit der kommunistischen Führerin und Verfechterin der Frauenrechte, Clara Zetkin, in Ehren. Sie war es, die unter anderem dafür eintrat dem Beispiel der Arbeiterinnen der USA zu folgen, die am 8. März 1909, ein Jahr nach der Ermordung der 129 Heldinnen, mit Großdemonstrationen und Streiks für das Recht der Frauen kämpften. Dank Clara Zetkin wurden diese Demonstrationen zu einem internationalen Ereignis, das sich seit 1911 jährt. Wir halten das Banner der proletarischen Frauenbewegung hoch, das Zetkins Lebenswerk darstellt. Dieses strahlende Banner muss noch bis in die hintersten Winkel dieser Welt getragen werden, sein Licht noch jede einzelne unserer Klassenschwestern in ihrem in Schweiß und Blut getränkten Dasein zum Kampf gegen die Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung führen.

 

2.            Die RCIT grüßt besonders die Kämpferinnen und Kämpfer, die der imperialistischen Bestie mutig ins Antlitz blicken und sie endlich zu einem abgeschlossenen Kapitel der Menschheitsgeschichte machen wollen. Die Überausbeutung der halbkolonialen Länder, der die Kontrolle der Monopole über die Weltwirtschaft und ihrer permanenten Jagd nach Profit zugrundeliegt, prägen das Leben von Milliarden Unterdrückten des Nahen Ostens, des afrikanischen Kontinents, Lateinamerikas sowie breiter Teile Asiens sowie der Länder Osteuropas. Alleine die größten 147 multinationalen Konzerne kontrollieren 40% der Weltwirtschaft und nimmt man die 737 mächtigsten Monopole, so haben diese sogar 80% in der Hand. Sie beuten dabei in atemberaubender Geschwindigkeit die Menschen der Halbkolonien aus, allen voran die Frauen. In ihrem entbehrungsreichen Leben erwartet die Arbeiterfrauen nach einem oftmals mehr als 15-stündigen durchschnittlichen Arbeitstag sowie Gewalt und Vergewaltigungen durch die Aufseher der Fabriken das Versorgen des Haushaltes und der Kinder, wenn sie sich erschöpft und bis aufs Blut ausgebeutet nachhause schleppen. Ebenso werden die armen Bäuerinnen und die Armen der Städte in ein trostloses, am Rande des Verhungerns stehendes Dasein gedrückt, dem goldenen Kalb des Profites einiger Konzernherren und Großgrundbesitzer geopfert. Zu alldem kommen die Besatzerkriege der Großmächte hinzu, die den Frauen jede Perspektive auf eine Zukunft, geschweige denn auf wirkliche Freiheit und Gleichberechtigung unter Bombenhagel zunichtemachen wollen. Doch die bestialische Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung der Frau hindert Millionen von ihnen nicht am heldenhaften Widerstand gegen das imperialistische Raubtier. Gerade das letzte Jahr wurde durch ihren Kampf geprägt.

 

3.            Heldenhaft kämpften im vergangenen Jahr die Fabrikarbeiterinnen in verschiedenen Teilen der Welt. Die Arbeiterinnen und Arbeiter der taiwanesischen Schuhfabrik Yue Yuen, 70% von ihnen sind Frauen, streikten mehr als zwei Wochen lang für einen gerechten Lohn und verbesserte Arbeitsbedingungen. Diese 40.000 Beschäftigten in der chinesischen Fabrikstadt Dongguan werden in Akkordarbeit zum Mindestlohn ausgebeutet und waren bis zum Streikbeginn fast gänzlich ohne gewerkschaftliche Organisierung. Sie setzten mit ihren heldenhaften Kampf den Konzernchefs von Nike, Adidas und anderer mächtig zu. Ebenso wie ihre Klassenbrüder und vor allem Klassenschwestern in Kambodscha standen sie dabei nicht nur den Fabrikbesitzern sondern der gesamten kapitalistischen Regierung in ihrem Land als Feinde gegenüber. In Kambodscha wurden dabei 39 Arbeiterinnen verhaftet, fünf von ihnen wurden von der Militärpolizei förmlich hingerichtet. Kambodscha hat einen Frauenanteil von 90% unter den 600.000 Textilarbeiterinnen und –arbeitern, von denen Tausende in den Streik gegen die sinkenden Löhne getreten sind. Diese niedrigen Löhne machten Kambodscha zu einem Land noch größerer Begierde für imperialistische Konzerne, vermehrt auch aus China. Die Arbeiterfrauen stellten sich mutig gegen die Konzernherren, forderten das Recht auf gewerkschaftliche Organisierung, höhere Löhne und bessere Schutzmaßnahmen gegen die giftigen Dämpfe, die sie regelmäßig bewusstlos werden lassen. Sie lieferten sich Straßenschlachten mit der Militärpolizei Kambodschas und wurden in Dongguan mit angeblich „ruhe- und friedenschaffenden Maßnahmen“ verhaftet. Dies sind nur einige wenige der unzähligen heldenhaften proletarischen Kämpferinnen weltweit.

 

4.            Heldenhaft kämpften im vergangenen Jahr auch die armen Bäuerinnen gegen den zunehmenden Landraub, der inzwischen nicht nur durch Großgrundbesitzer, sondern gerade auch durch multinationale Konzerne erfolgt. In Liberia haben sich die Frauen und Männer des Jogbahn-Clans erfolgreich gegen die Enteignung durch den britischen Palmöl-Konzern Equatorial Palm Oil zur Wehr setzen können. Gerade hier hat sich auch wieder gezeigt, dass der Kampf der Arbeiterfrauen und armen Bäuerinnen nicht dem Interesse der bürgerlichen Frauen entspricht. Immerhin ist es die Präsidentin Liberias, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, die seit Jahren ebendiese multinationalen Konzerne vermehrt ins Land holt. Beeindruckend versuchen sich auch die Indigenen Brasiliens, wie z.B. die Guarani, gegen den Landraub zu wehren. Ihre Sprecherin Marinalva Manoel wurde vergewaltigt und ermordet, weil ihre Stimme zu laut, ihre Kampagne zu erfolgreich gewesen ist. Das sind nur zwei der zahlreichen Beispiele des heldenhaften Widerstandskampfes der armen Bäuerinnen weltweit.

 

5.            Heldenhaft kämpften im vergangenen Jahr auch die Frauen der verschiedensten Widerstandsbewegungen, die sich gegen Diktaturen und imperialistische Einmischungen bewaffnet zur Wehr setzen. Die Frauen des Gaza-Streifens, die sich in Hamas und anderen Widerstandsorganisationen als Kämpferinnen organisieren und gegen den übermächtigen Apartheidstaat Israel kämpfen, haben im blutigen Vernichtungskrieg im Sommer 2014 erneut unerschütterlichen Mut bewiesen. Kämpferinnen wie Um Dschafar und Guevara sind bekannte weibliche Gesichter der Rebellen in Syrien, die sich gegen die Diktatur Assads wehren. Immer mehr Fraueneinheiten schließen sich den Rebellen an, so auch der Miliz der „Saut al-Hak“ („Stimme des Rechtes“). Weltweit schließen sich immer mehr Frauen anti-imperialistischen Befreiungsbewegungen an.

 

6.            Die zunehmende Teilnahme der Frauen der unterdrückten Klassen am Befreiungskampf ist auch der Grund warum reaktionäre Regimes und imperialistische Staaten immer öfter versuchen, Frauen für ihre Sache zu gewinnen (wie z.B. Assads sogenannte „Löwinnen“ oder Israels Soldatinnen). Damit hoffen unsere Feinde ein Gegengewicht zu schaffen angesichts des regen Zulaufs, den der Befreiungskampf auch durch den weiblichen Teil der unterdrückten Völker erfährt. Egal ob weibliche Schergen im Dienste der Herrschenden, Frauen in den Chefetagen der Konzerne, an der Spitze rassistischer Bewegungen oder gar eines korrupten Regimes – sie sind alle nichts anderes als Feinde jeder klassenbewussten Arbeiterin und unterdrückten Frau. An dieser Tatsache ändert sich auch nichts, wenn sich diese Feinde der wirklichen Frauenbefreiungskämpferinnen selbst als Feministinnen bezeichnen.

 

7.            Die RCIT steht für den wirklichen Befreiungskampf gegen Frauenunterdrückung, der eine untrennbare Einheit mit dem Kampf gegen Kapitalismus und der imperialistischen Bestie darstellt. Dieser wirkliche Befreiungskampf wird von den Arbeiterinnen und Arbeitern dieser Welt angeführt und stützt sich auf den unterdrückten Volksmassen. Die Bewegung, die allgemein unter dem Begriff Feminismus zusammengefasst werden kann, kennt dagegen nur zwei, den proletarischen Interessen feindliche, Lager: Das Lager der bürgerlichen und das Lager der kleinbürgerlichen Frauenbewegung. Beide stehen diesen wirklichen Befreiungskampf auf unterschiedliche Weise im Weg. Sie bieten den unterdrückten Frauen entweder Teilnahme an der Unterdrückung an oder eine Sackgasse, die sie ins geschichtliche Nichts führt.

 

8.            Der Feminismus bürgerlicher Ausprägung ist ein großer Feind wirklicher Frauenbefreiung. Er stellt sich in den Dienst imperialistischer Interessen was sich schon früh in seiner Geschichte zeigte. Die Suffragetten waren die radikalste Ausprägung einer bürgerlichen Frauenbewegung. Sie verübten sogar Selbstmordattentate, um auf ihre Anliegen aufmerksam zu machen. Doch als 1914 der imperialistische Erste Weltkrieg ausbrach, wurden sie umgehend zu flammenden Vaterlandverteidigerinnen, die sich bereitwillig im Sinne ihres imperialistischen Vaterlandes zur Kriegsmobilisierung meldeten. In ihrer Tradition sind auch heutige bürgerliche Feministinnen zu sehen, allen voran die deutsche Alice Schwarzer, die Sympathien für die rassistischen PEGIDA-Mobilisierungen entwickelt hat und die schon seit langem imperialistische Kriegsmobilisierungen gegen die angebliche „islamistische Bedrohung“ unterstützt. Diese bürgerlichen Feministinnen haben die pro-imperialistischen Mobilisierungen nach dem Attentat auf das rassistische Magazin Charlie Hebdo begrüßt. Sie lassen sich regelmäßig dafür einspannen, imperialistische Besatzerkriege wie den gegen Afghanistan und Irak mit dem Argument angeblicher Frauenbefreiung zu rechtfertigen. All das tarnen sie mit den Worten einer angeblichen Solidarität, die das gesamte weibliche Geschlecht umfassen muss. Dies ist nichts anderes als der Aufruf an Arbeiterfrauen und anderer Unterdrückten zum Verrat der eigenen Klasseninteressen, um – wie es die bürgerliche Frauenbewegung vorlebt – den imperialistischen Mächten zu dienen.

 

9.            Der Feminismus kleinbürgerlicher Ausprägung ist eine Sackgasse im Kampf für wirkliche Frauenbefreiung. Er steht zwar gerade auch in Indien und in verschiedenen Ländern Lateinamerikas oftmals an der Spitze von Massenmobilisierung der unterdrückten Frauen, wie der städtischen Armen, der Landarmut und auch vieler Arbeiterinnen. Er schreckt aber vor einem wirklichen Bruch mit der herrschenden Klasse und ihrem System, dem Kapitalismus, zurück. Mehr noch als das: der kleinbürgerliche Feminismus möchte die Frauen der bürgerlichen Frauenbewegung an Bord holen. Er ist daher ein potentielles Einfallstor eben dieser reaktionären Elemente in die Massenbewegungen der Unterdrückten. In Chile ist durch eine erstarkte kleinbürgerlich-geführte Frauenbewegung der Weg für bürgerliche Frauen in eine Reihe von Regierungsämtern geebnet worden. Eben diese Regierung hat erst – entgegen den ursprünglichen Forderungen der kleinbürgerlichen Frauenbewegung – kürzlich beschlossen, bestimmte Familienförderungen nur zu vergeben, wenn diese mit regelmäßigen gynäkologischen Untersuchungen der Frauen verbunden wird. In Indien standen auch kleinbürgerliche Feministinnen an vorderster Front während der Massenproteste gegen die Gruppenvergewaltigungen. Wie schon in der Vergangenheit gehört zu ihren zentralen Forderungen auch der Ausbau des Polizeiapparates, der real eine Verschlechterung und zunehmende Repression für die unterdrückten Klassen bedeutet. Ein seit Jahren laufendes Projekt kleinbürgerlicher Feministinnen waren auch Selbsthilfegruppen für Frauen, die ihre Töchter in der Not umbrachten. Diese Selbsthilfegruppen verwandelten sich in Kontrolleinheiten, die systematisch alle Frauen bei der Polizei anzeigten, die nicht zugaben ihre Töchter umgebracht zu haben. Im besten Fall sind kleinbürgerliche Feministinnen ungewollte Steigbügelhalterinnen für bürgerliche Karrieristinnen, im schlimmsten Fall sind sie offene Unterstützerinnen des bürgerlichen Repressionsapparates. Nur der proletarische Weg der revolutionären Frauenbewegung vertritt in aller Konsequenz die Interessen der unterdrückten Frauen, sowie aller anderen Ausgebeuteten und Unterdrückten dieser Welt. Eine solche revolutionär-proletarische Frauenbewegung muss daher auch Teil des Kampfes für eine neue, revolutionäre Fünfte ArbeiterInnen-Internationale, einer Weltpartei des Proletariats und aller Unterdrückten sein.

 

10.          Die RCIT steht für den Aufbau einer solchen Weltpartei, wie auch für den Aufbau einer revolutionären Frauenbewegung. Wir grüßen alle Kämpferinnen und Kämpfer für die Befreiung der von der Klassengesellschaft und dem Imperialismus besonders geknechteten Frau und wir fordern sie auf, sich mit uns zusammenzuschließen. Lasst uns gemeinsam für ein revolutionäres Programm für Frauenbefreiung kämpfen!

 

 

 

Für volle Gleichberechtigung in der Arbeitswelt:

 

* Gleicher Lohn für gleiche Arbeit! Massive Unterstützung zur Umwandlung der Teilzeit- in Vollzeitbeschäftigungsverhältnisse für Frauen!

 

* Für ein öffentliches Beschäftigungsprogramm, um die Voraussetzung für die Vergesellschaftung der Hausarbeit zu schaffen und gleichzeitig die Arbeitslosigkeit unter den Frauen zu beseitigen!

 

* Aufbau von Gewerkschaften, gerade auch für Arbeiterinnen und Arbeiter in halbkolonialen Ländern! Für Frauenkomissionen in den Gewerkschaften, um sich mit der besonderen Benachteiligung von Frauen sowohl am Arbeitsplatz als auch mit Sexismus in der ArbeiterInnenbewegung auseinanderzusetzen!

 

 

 

Für volle Gleichberechtigung in der gesamten Gesellschaft:

 

* Schluss mit allen Formen der rechtlichen Benachteiligung der Frauen – sei es in der Arbeitswelt, beim Zugang zur Bildung oder bei den Wahlen!

 

* Für den massiven Aufbau von kostenlosen, gut ausgestatteten Kinderbetreuungseinrichtungen rund um die Uhr! Für ein breit gefächertes Angebot von günstige und hochwertigen öffentlichen Verpflegungsstätten und Wäschereien! Unser Ziel ist die Vergesellschaftung der Hausarbeit!

 

* Freier Zugang zu kostenlosen Verhütungsmitteln und Abtreibung auf Verlangen ohne Ansehen des Alters und unabhängig davon, im welchen Monat der Schwangerschaft sich die Frau befindet!

 

* Weg mit allen Gesetzen und öffentlichen Kampagnen über religiöse Kleidervorschriften! Für das Recht auf das Tragen religiöser Kleidung unabhängig davon, ob es sich um eine Form von muslimischer Verschleierung, um den Dastar der Sikhs o.ä. handelt! Aber auch gegen jeden Zwang, diese tragen zu müssen!

 

 

 

Schluss mit der Gewalt gegen Frauen:

 

* Kampf der Gewalt gegen Frauen! Für den Ausbau öffentlicher und von Frauenorganisationen kontrollierten Frauenschutzeinrichtungen! Für den Aufbau von Selbstverteidigungseinheiten gegen frauenfeindliche Gewalt durch die ArbeiterInnen- und Frauenbewegung!

 

* Schluss mit der Bevormundung durch Staat und religiöse Institutionen: jeder und jede soll seine Sexualität ohne Zwang und Vorschriften ausleben können, solange dies mit dem gegenseitigen Einverständnis der PartnerInnen stattfindet.

 

* Völlige Gleichberechtigung für Lesben (wie auch Schwule und transsexuellen Personen) beim Eherecht, dem Recht auf Kindererziehung, dem öffentlichen Ausleben ihrer Zuneigung usw.!

 

* Keine Kriminalisierung der Sexualität der Jugendlichen durch gesetzliche Altersbeschränkungen! Hingegen bedarf es scharfer Gesetze gegen Vergewaltigung und häusliche Gewalt, um Kinder vor Missbrauch zu schützen. Häusliche GewalttäterInnen sollten durch Nachbarschafts- und Schulausschüsse zur Verantwortung gezogen werden.

 

 

 

Konsequenter Kampf gegen die imperialistische Bestie und für die Befreiung der Halbkolonien:

 

* Enteignet die multi-nationalen Konzerne, die die halbkoloniale Länder blutigst ausbeuten, und stellt sie unter die Kontrolle ihrer Beschäftigten! Das gilt gerade auch für alle Fabriken (ihre „Geschäftspartner“), die nichts anderes sind als lokale Handlanger der Konzerne. Daher: für die Verstaatlichung der imperialistischen Banken und Konzerne unter Arbeiterkontrolle!

 

* Für den Aufbau von Gewerkschaften, die gerade auch mittels Frauenkomissionen die Verbrechen dieser Konzerne gegen Arbeiterinnen (Vergewaltigungen, Misshandlungen, etc.) aufdecken und bekämpfen!

 

* Streichung der Schulden aller halb-kolonialen Länder Lateinamerikas, Asiens, Afrikas und Osteuropas! Stattdessen müssen die imperialistischen Staaten die halbkoloniale Welt für die Ausplünderung ihrer natürlichen und menschlichen Ressourcen entschädigen! Für ArbeiterInnentribunale in den halbkolonialen Ländern, die von der internationalen ArbeiterInnenbewegung unterstützt werden, um die Verbrechen der Konzerne an den Menschen in den halbkolonialen Ländern wie auch an der Umwelt zu ermitteln und ihre Eigentümer zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen!

 

* Zerschlagt den IWF, Weltbank und die WTO!

 

* Nein zum Protektionismus der imperialistischen Länder gegen Produkte der ärmeren Länder! Abschaffung der amerikanischen Wirtschaftszone NAFTA, der gemeinsamen EU-Agrarpolitik u.a. protektionistischer Waffen des Imperialismus! Umgekehrt treten wir jedoch für das Recht von Ländern der ‚Dritten Welt' ein, ihre Märkte vor Billigimporten aus den imperialistischen Ländern zu schützen.

 

* Für einen internationalen Notplan zur Rettung der Hungernden und zum Kampf gegen die Folgen des Klimawandels – finanziert aus den Profiten der Banken und Konzerne in den reichen Ländern!

 

* Sofortiges Verbot des Ankaufs von Grund und Boden durch multinationale Konzerne und Spekulationsfonds! Sofortige Enteignung aller nicht landwirtschaftlich genutzten fruchtbaren Böden im Eigentum großer Grundbesitzer! Abschaffung aller Patente kapitalistischer Monopole in der Landwirtschaft!

 

* Für die Enteignung der Großgrundbesitzer, der Kirche und der multinationalen Konzerne! Für die Verstaatlichung des Grund und Bodens unter Kontrolle von ArbeiterInnen und armen Bauern! Das Land denen, die es bebauen! Die örtlichen rätedemokratischen Vertretungen der armen und landlosen Bauern müssen die Frage der Aufteilung und Nutzung des Landes entscheiden! Förderung von freiwilligen landwirtschaftlichen Genossenschaften und der Bildung größerer staatlicher Produktionseinheiten!

 

* Dort wo die Infrastruktur der Halbkolonien noch zu schwach ist: Aufbau von Dorfkollektiven, um die Kinderbetreuung und die Hausarbeit auf alle Hände aufzuteilen und den Frauen volle Berufstätigkeit zu ermöglichen!

 

* Imperialistische Großmächte: Hände weg von Syrien, Libyen, Irak, Afghanistan, usw.! Für den Sieg des Widerstandes! Sofortiges Ende aller Besatzerkriege, Abzug aller Truppen (auch sogenannter Hilfseinsätze) und Auflösung aller imperialistischen Einrichtungen vor Ort! Gegen jede Form der Einmischung, sei sie militärisch, ökonomisch oder politisch!

 

 

 

Vorwärts zur revolutionären Weltpartei! Für den Aufbau einer revolutionären Frauenbewegung!

 

 

 

 

Report (with pictures and veos) from the RKOB (Austrian Section of the RCIT) and the youth organization RED*REVOLUTION, 10.3.2014, www.thecommunists.net

 

The Revolutionary Communist Organization LIBERATION (RKOB, Austrian Section of the RCIT) and the youth organization RED*REVOLUTION organized a rally on the International Women’s Day. It was a great success with about 80 people – women and men – participating in a militant protest against the oppression of women.

 

The rally was opened with a speech by Nina Gunić, spokeswoman for the RKOB. She pointed out to the fact that violence against women is an essential part of the oppression of women under capitalism. She stressed also that violence against women is systematically used by the ruling class as an instrument of oppression. A current example for this is the brutality of the military dictatorship in Egypt which has killed many sisters. Another horrific example is the genocidal war of the Serbian chauvinist Milosevic regime against the Bosnian people in 1992-95.

 

This was followed by a speech by Mirsada Alić, a Bosniak woman. She could not finish her speech as the atrocities of the war of 1992-95 are still very present in her memory. Nina Gunić translated the speech which was done in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language into German and spoke in conclusion a few words of solidarity.

 

After this, Rebecca Stauder, a 16-year old militant from the RKOB and RED*REVOLUTION addressed the crowd. She emphasized the inequality in wages from which women are suffering in Austria and in whole Europe. She also pointed out how difficult it is for young women, particularly young migrant women, to find a job.

 

The speeches were followed repeatedly by chants like "Long live international solidarity!" and "Down down with Sisi!" which was enthusiastically received by many Egyptian women who participated in the rally.

 

The next speaker was Saadie Abdelaty, a female representative of the Egyptian community. She addressed the crowd in Arabic and her speech was translated by Salwa, a young Egyptian woman, into German language. Salwa also held thereafter her own speech. Both speakers stressed the massive oppression of the Egyptian women not only in their everyday life but also in their resistance struggle against the military dictatorship.

 

The large participation in the rally organized by the RKOB and RED*REVOLUTION has shown us that there is a basis to take up again the tradition of the day the struggle for proletarian women. The numerous and enthusiastic participation of women and progressive men is a strong signal for the future to go forward on the road of building a revolutionary, proletarian women’s movement!

 

Forward to the proletarian 8 March 2015! For the liberation of women! For a revolutionary, proletarian women's movement! Long live international solidarity!

 

Photos of the rally can be viewed on the RKOB homepage at http://www.rkob.net/wer-wir-sind-1/rkob-aktiv-bei/internationaler-frauentag-2014/ (scroll down below the article)

In addition, we will publish at the same place video clips from the speeches in the next days.

Call for the World Women's Day on March 8 by the Revolutionary Communist Organization LIBERATION (RKOB, Austrian section of the RCIT) and the youth organization RED*REVOLUTION, 7.2.2014 www.rkob.net

 

Oppression of women is an inherent part of capitalism. In Austria, for example, on the average women receive 25% less pay than men for the same work. Housework and child-care remain primarily the responsibility of women. One in four women has been involved in a relationship in which they have repeatedly experienced violence.

 

For more than 100 years now, women of our class, the working class, have celebrated – shoulder to shoulder with the most advanced of their class brothers – March 8 as a day of struggle for the liberation of workers and full equality for women. The organization of women in revolutionary movements is an important step towards the overthrow of capitalism and the abolishment of women's oppression. This year, the annual, international proletarian day of struggle for the liberation of women is also an opportunity to march for the following demands:

 

* Down with all forms of violence against women! For massive, governmental investment for the creation of self-managed women centers that are able to accommodate all victims of violence! For the formation of self-defense units, supported by the workers’ movement, to defend these facilities against attack!

 

* For regular meetings of women in places of work, schools, and neighborhoods to exchange personal experiences involving violence and to spot in time any form of violence against women, as well as the organization of a collective effort against it!

 

* For the complete equality of women in all areas of the society! Above all: Equal Pay for Equal Work!

 

* For the socialization of housework! For the creation of public, comprehensive, and free laundries, canteens, and child-care facilities! In this way, housework will no longer be a private burden, but will be a recognized form of social labor. Only in this way will the yoke of unpaid housework and child-care be removed from the shoulders of women! In order to finance the socialization of housework, we call for the expropriation of the super-rich and the nationalization of large corporations and banks under the control of the workers!

* Multi-national corporations from the imperialist countries exploit the workers of semi-colonial countries – but, in particular, proletarian women. Many are beaten regularly and sexually abused. For the expropriation of large multi-national corporations and their placement under workers’ control! For the immediate annulment of the debts of all semi-colonial countries to the imperialist parasites! For the formation of female workers collectives, supported by the labor movements, to defend against any attack on female workers both in and outside places of work!

 

* For the liberation of women from the yoke of prostitution! No to any discrimination against prostitutes! For free social security and regular medical care for prostitutes! For the widespread creation of training centers where every prostitute can receive alternative job training with pay! For the organization of prostitutes in trade unions! The abolition of prostitution is a goal of socialism! Only under socialism does a ban on prostitution mean punishment for pimps as well as clients and more opportunities and rights for (former) prostitute! However, under capitalism any ban on prostitution should be rejected, because all such capitalist bans target primarily the prostitutes themselves!

 

* For a revolutionary women’s movement! For the right of women to caucus in trade unions, workers’ parties, and every other proletarian organization! Only a revolutionary, Fifth Workers International with a strong female profile can lead the way forward to the overthrow of capitalism and the abolishment of women's oppression!

 

Forward to a revolutionary, proletarian March 8!