International Women's Day. A Militant Celebration

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/womens-day.htm
Year Published:  1920
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX22867

Written by Alexandra Kollontai and first published in Mezhdunarodnyi den' rabotnitz, Moscow, 1920.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The first International Women's Day took place in 1911. Its success succeeded all expectation. Germany and Austria on Working Women's Day was one seething, trembling sea of women. Meetings were organized everywhere - in the small towns and even in the villages halls were packed so full that they had to ask male workers to give up their places for the women.

This was certainly the first show of militancy by the working woman. Men stayed at home with their children for a change, and their wives, the captive housewives, went to meetings. During the largest street demonstrations, in which 30,000 were taking part, the police decided to remove the demonstrators' banners: the women workers made a stand. In the scuffle that followed, bloodshed was averted only with the help of the socialist deputies in Parliament.

Subject Headings

• Women's History
• Workers' History