March 8th. With Imperialist War on the Horizon, the Proletariat Must Prepare for the Return of Class Struggle

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With Imperialist War on the Horizon, the Proletariat Must Prepare for the Return of Class Struggle

110 years ago, the Third Conference of Socialist Women was held in Bern. This was a regular gathering of militant women from the main European socialist parties, which, since the beginning of the last century, aimed to promote the struggle of proletarian women in the specific areas where they had the most social influence. Starting from the particularly difficult conditions that the bourgeois regime had (and still has) in store for them, socialist militants raised those banners that, both in the field of economic struggles and in that of political demands, were meant to push the proletariat to break free from the swamp in which the capitalist world had plunged them and to take their rightful place in the class struggle.

By 1915, the first imperialist world war had already been raging for a year. The main social-democratic parties, the French and the German, had sealed a sacred pact of collaboration with their respective national bourgeoisies in defense of their “threatened” homelands, and any fraternization between them had been preemptively prohibited. While the internationalist tendencies within the socialist movement – those that would soon give rise to the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences – were still relatively stifled by the overwhelming impact of the political and trade union leaderships’ betrayal in favor of their national bourgeoisies, it was socialist women who first broke away, confusedly but decisively, from the prevailing nationalist discipline within their organizations to participate in that year’s conference. It was the first example of the survival of fundamental internationalist principles within a sector of social democracy and, with it, the first possibility that opened the path for a resurgence of Marxist theses in favor of revolutionary struggle – against imperialist war and for the defeat of bourgeois class domination. This is how their Appeal to Working Women of the World concluded:

“The whole of humanity is watching you, proletarian women of the warring countries. You must become heroines, saviors.

Let us unite! Be united in will and action! Proclaim a million times what your husbands and sons cannot yet admit: the workers of all countries are brothers. Only the united will of this people can command an end to this massacre.

Down with capitalism, which sacrifices millions on the altar of wealth and power for the ruling class.

In 1917, just two years later, it was the proletarian women of Tsarist Russia who took the first step in this direction: on March 8 (according to the Julian calendar), a protest in Petrograd demanding increased bread rations – severely reduced due to shortages caused by the war – sparked the first revolts that led to the February Revolution. As is well known, the proletarian women’s movement was the first step in the first act of the real proletarian revolution: the October 1917 Revolution, where the Bolsheviks led the proletarian and peasant masses (many of whom had been mobilized for war) to seize power and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia, which, in the eyes of the Bolsheviks themselves, was meant to be the prelude to world revolution.

More than a century later, imperialist war once again looms on the horizon, and it no longer seems so distant. The great capitalist crisis of 2008-2013 not only caused a brutal decline in the proletariat’s living conditions but also exposed the difficulties that major imperialist powers face in maintaining their global partitioning system, their systematic but relatively organized plundering of resources, trade routes, wealth, etc. The last few years have shown an inexorable trend toward confrontation between these powers, and although for now, this happens only at a distance and through proxies – as seen in Ukraine, partially in the Middle East and Africa – the reality is that the drums of war are beating ever louder everywhere.

Both the war itself and the period preceding it, which will be marked by the mobilization of ever-greater resources for the conflict (from weapons to soldiers, from billions of dollars invested in military equipment to workers relocated to what will be designated as “essential industries”), will exert increasing pressure on the proletariat, who will see their living and working conditions systematically deteriorate. The so-called “social achievements” – which in reality are concessions granted by the bourgeoisie to maintain social peace, thanks to the extra profits extracted from the capitalist system – will surely be the first to disappear. And with them, the very system that many believe to be permanent, the same system on which large masses of proletarians in the super-developed capitalist countries rely to ensure a life not as miserable as that of their brothers and sisters in former colonies, in the so-called “Third World”, etc.

Both war and its preparations will be a slow but inevitable demonstration that capitalism has nothing to offer but misery and destruction and that every semblance of peace and stability has been nothing but a mirage.

Even during decades of economic expansion and relative capitalist peace (relative because such peace existed only in the most developed countries, while in the capitalist periphery, war has been a constant), the proletarian woman remained in a subordinate position compared to the proletarian man. In addition to her class oppression, she faces additional oppression due to her gender. She has always borne the burden of family pressures, household care, child-rearing, the lowest-paid and worst working conditions, as well as humiliations and harassment that bourgeois society “grants” her simply for being a woman.

This situation is destined to worsen as society inches closer to war. Every oppression will be doubled. Conditions that were believed to be overcome – but remain economically or politically advantageous for the bourgeoisie – will return. And the proletarian woman will suffer even more, bearing the brunt of capitalism’s worsening reality. She will be called upon to endure increased oppression in the name of national unity, the defense of the homeland, a “united front” with bourgeois women (certainly cloaked under feminist solidarity or another slogan). And the so-called “freedom” and “rights won” will be used as arguments to make her actively participate in defending the bourgeoisie’s class interests.

The war will confront the proletariat – and proletarian women in particular – with a stark choice: fight for their class interests or die. The war mobilization will exert such pressure on the working class that they will have no choice but to return to the battlefield of class struggle, to defend their interests uncompromisingly, using class-based methods and means – which cannot be shared with the bourgeoisie at any level – to prevent the bourgeoisie from destroying their lives and turning them and their children into cannon fodder.

Proletarian women have a long tradition of struggle, even if they may have forgotten it. From the Paris Commune of 1871 to Petrograd in 1917, including their role in major class organizations, political and trade unions, they have proven their revolutionary strength – a strength they will need again when history demands it.

When the bourgeoisie, as seen recently in Ukraine, Russia, and Israel, once again designates the war fronts as the inevitable destiny of proletarians, the proletarian woman will have to show, without a shadow of a doubt, that she is the heir of the greatest tradition of struggle in history: the struggle of the proletarian class.

Until then, proletarian women will not cease to fight, alongside proletarian men, to demand a dignified life, to defend their most fundamental and specific rights – maternity, childhood, night work, etc. – and to stand firm in economic struggles, defending wages, working conditions, and workplace safety.

Il comunista - le prolétaire - el proletario - proletarian - programme communiste - el programa comunista - Communist Program