Clara Zetkin Quotes

We are not making this demand for the sake of a principle, but in the interests of the proletarian class.

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

Fascism has a contradictory character and carries within it strong elements of ideological and political dislocation and dissolution. Its goal is to recast the old bourgeois 'democratic' state into a fascist state based on violence. This unleashes conflicts between the old established bureaucracy and the new fascist one; between the standing army with its officer corps and the new militia with its leaders; between the violent fascist policies in the economy and state and the ideology of the remaining liberal and democratic bourgeoisie; between the monarchists and republicans; between the actual fascists (the blackshirts) and the nationalists recruited into the party and its militia; between the fascists' original program, which deceived the masses and achieved victory, and present-day fascist politics, which serve the interest of industrial capitalists and above all heave industry, which has been propped up artificially.

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

Women are house as well as factory slaves and are forced to bear a double workload.

The workers have nothing to gain from this war, but they stand to lose everything that is dear to them.

In individual industries where female labour pays an important role, any movement advocating better wages, shorter working hours, etc., would not be doomed from the start because of the attitude of those women workers who are not organized.

When the men kill, it is up to us women to fight for the preservation of life.

The machines, the modern mode of production, slowly undermined domestic production and not just for thousands but for millions of women the question arose: Where do we now find our livelihood?

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

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

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

We must grapple with [the] national ideology [of fascism] explicitly. We still hold to the words "the proletarian has no fatherland," because everything that could make a fatherland into a fatherland is extracted by capitalist exploitation, up to and including the very light of the sun. In spite of this, the proletariat is connected to the material and cultural wealth which is the product of many generations, and which it alone can transfer to coming generations. That is why the proletariat will create its fatherland through its own efforts, by constructing its government and constituting itself as a nation.

These interests of the workers, as the exploited and oppressed, class of society, are the same in all countries.

Each reform, therefore, improving the economical and political situation of the workers proves to be an arm that increases the energy with which the proletarian struggle of classes is fought.

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

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